


Survivors

by Lulubird



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-20 00:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 38,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18981643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lulubird/pseuds/Lulubird
Summary: Through the blackened bodies and the curling smoke, Bellamy is relieved to find that he's not the only one who survived. They've been scattered to the wind, but Bellamy is determined to find his people, no matter what it might cost. Takes place post 1x13.





	1. Chapter 1

Bellamy's head pounded as he rolled over, his senses coming back to him. He coughed, his throat felt as though he'd inhaled fire. He took stock – he was lying on dry leaves, apart from his head nothing else seemed seriously hurt. He was alive.

He coughed again, and that was when he remembered what had happened.

The explosion.

He sat up too quickly and the world swayed and his stomach heaved. He retched against the stone wall of the tunnel. When was the last time any of them had eaten? It had been life and death for so long that he'd forgotten about something as simple as food.

He scrunched his eyes shut, trying to sort his thoughts into a coherent order. He had been fighting that Grounder, Finn had been there, he'd seen Clarke's back as she sprinted. He remembered smashing a rock into the Grounders skull, the blood spattering across his face. He remembered Finn shouting to take cover, he'd dived into the nearest tunnel...and everything around him had exploded.

He lifted his head. That was good, it meant that Clarke's plan had worked. Perhaps...perhaps they weren't all dead.

"Clarke? Finn?" he tried to shout but his voice was gone. He scrabbled him way through the tunnel, ignoring the pain in his head in his frantic hurry to find the others. He slithered on his stomach out of the entrance and landed with a dull crash on the ground below. He groaned and he shifted away from something hard that was digging into his side. His eyes focused and he came face to face with a charred skull.

A broken noise escaped his throat as he pushed himself backwards. He kicked the charred skeleton away, brushing the remains frantically from his filthy clothes.

Breathing hard he lifted his head and surveyed the place that he had come to call home. The trees were blackened, some flattened like when they landed. The ground around the Drop Ship was a wasteland of twisted skeletons and unidentifiable objects. His stomach heaved again but he pushed the sickness away. He had to know if they'd survived. The door to the drop ship was open, the sheets billowing out in the breeze, but everything was eerily devoid of human movement.

"Hello?" he tried to call again, his voice more audible this time. There was an explosion of movement as a bird took flight nearby, sending his heart into a panicked stutter.

He pushed himself to his feet, taking only a moment to steady himself.

Please don't let me be the only one left, he begged silently as he stumbled his way around the bodies towards the Drop Ship. Octavia was gone and he couldn't do it if they were all gone too. He couldn't do it alone.

Only the sheets over the doors answered his call, cracking as they billowed in and out of the doorway.

"Anyone?" he bellowed, finding his voice with the sudden, overwhelming fear of being alone. He didn't even care if a Grounder answered his call in the moment; he just didn't want to be the only one left.

The tree top swayed silently and the loneliness pressed in on him. He reached the Drop Ship door and slipped and slid, falling and pushing himself back up in his hurry.

He ripped the covering aside, his heartbeat pounding in his throat.

The Drop Ship was empty and everything inside of him collapsed. He fell to his knees with a harsh crack, not even noticing the pain.

"No," he gasped. How could they all be gone? They had been inside the Drop Ship when the explosion happened, he was sure of it. Had they run?

"Bellamy?" The voice calling his name was tiny, barely audible, but the silence had been so overpowering that he heard it as if it were deafening. He was on his feet in an instant, tossing broken seats and crates out of his path.

He sent a crate flying across the cabin and stopped dead.

Raven looked up at him, looking ten times worse than he felt, but just as scared.

He'd never been sure how he felt about Raven, between her holding a knife to his throat one day and demanding she sleep with him the next, but in that moment he loved her more than the air in his lungs.

"You're alive!" he gasped as he fell to his knees beside her. He buried his face in her hair as he pulled her into a crushing hug. He never thought he'd be so glad to feel another human's touch.

"Ouch! Not if you do that," she moaned and he released her instantly, pulling back. He'd forgotten about her wound, he'd just been so glad to see someone alive. He frowned as he looked down at the blood soaked front of her jacket. She didn't look much better than the last time he had seen her.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I thought everyone was dead..." he trailed off, realising that they still might be. Raven was completely alone on the Drop Ship. And Clarke would never have run and just left Raven there wounded and dying. Cold dread returned to his veins as he realised that the situation was still bad.

Raven winced as she pulled herself into a half sitting position against a crate.

"They've been taken," she said, wiping her forehead and leaving a smudge there.

Bellamy swallowed. "Taken by the Grounders? But the explosion worked."

Raven shook her head. "Can you pass me that water?" She motioned weakly at a canister lying on its side near him and he obliged. She took a sip and handed it to him. He hesitated one moment before gulping it down. The burning in his throat was soothed and the ashy taste in his mouth vanished. He gasped for breath, wiping his mouth as he put the canister down.

"It worked. Barbequed Grounder," Raven said listlessly. "It was something else that took them. I came to and there was no one here but I could hear them outside. I heard Jasper call something and then there was shouting and crying and then nothing." She shook her head, swallowing painfully at the memory. "I couldn't move or do anything. Then these people came into the Drop Ship. They weren't Grounders though. They were wearing all black, like military gear, and they had guns that you'd have a wet dream over. I pretended to be dead but I felt them looking all around. They must have decided I wasn't worth the effort because they left again, but I think they took everyone with them. I've been lying here for hours, calling out, but I thought I was the only one left."

Her eyes were bright as she said the last part and Bellamy could sympathise with that paralysing fear. He reached out and clasped her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"Well you're not," he replied. He frowned as he thought about what she'd said. How many survivors were there on earth? The Grounders, the Reapers, the Military Men? This was getting ridiculous.

"Do you have any idea where they took them?" he asked, passing her the water again. "They could have just killed them here, so they must want them alive." He wanted to believe that it was logic speaking, and not just blind hope.

She drank again and shook her head. "They didn't even speak. It was creepy." She put down the canister and looked up at him. "Did you...is Finn...?"

Bellamy looked away, unable to see the raw pain in her expression. "I don't know, I'm sorry. But it's a Grounder graveyard out there. That rocket fuel was powerful."

Raven looked down, blinking, and then scrubbed a hand across her eyes. He respected her refusal to show emotion, even when he was the only audience. He'd always liked that about her.

"What do we do now?" she asked, looking around.

Bellamy slumped to the floor, suddenly too tired to make a single decision. He looked at the chaotic ruins of their home. He and Raven were as good as alone in the world now. He could only hope that somewhere out there Lincoln was keeping Octavia safe, and that Clarke and the others weren't suffering at the hands of their mysterious kidnappers.

Raven's hand crept back into his and he didn't pull away.

"I don't know" he admitted.


	2. Chapter 2

"Raven, are you still alive over there?"

Bellamy had been asking some form of the same question all night but it wasn't meant to be a joke. He lifted himself up on one elbow and looked across to her. She turned her head in his direction and nodded slightly.

"If I were dead, I'm pretty sure there would be less pain," she replied bitterly.

He looked towards the door of the Drop Ship; he could just make out a faint light at the edges. Dawn had finally arrived. He'd never known a night to be so long. He hadn't slept at all; his head was too crammed of thoughts. Where was Clarke? Had Lincoln and Octavia escaped safely? What had happened to the Ark? Was Raven going to die and leave him truly alone?

The last question was the only one he could do something about at that moment, which was why he'd been pestering her all night so she wouldn't slip away from him. He shuffled closer to her side and picked up the edge of her jacket.

"I am so not in the mood for sex," Raven said. He gave her a withering look and pulled the fabric up to her chest so he could see the bullet wound. He winced at the sight of Clarke's cauterization and the spreading purple bruising that was a sign of internal bleeding.

"Finn was going to Lincoln's cave," Raven said softly as he frowned at the mess of her abdomen. "He was going to get some of the stuff Lincoln used to stop bleeding. I guess he did it, considering I'm still alive and all."

She looked away as she talked about Finn and it didn't escape Bellamy's notice, but he didn't comment. He had had no time for whatever little love triangle Finn, Raven and Clarke had had going, but he felt for Raven. No one could deny the way that Clarke and Finn kept looking at each other, and he'd always thought they were pretty blatant about it in front of Raven. Perhaps that was why he'd hoped them sleeping together would help.

"We can't stay here," he said, changing the topic. "We didn't kill all the Grounders and now we know there's worse out there."

"Okay," Raven said. "You grab those packs, I'll grab these crates and we'll hike it out of here. Oh wait...I can't walk!"

Bellamy rubbed a hand over his eyes but chose not to rise to her bait. He knew it wasn't a perfect situation; he did not need Raven pointing that out to him with her biting sarcasm. Instead he climbed wearily to his feet and began to dig through the supplies in the Drop Ship. There were packs unopened where people had dropped them when they'd taken cover. He didn't want to think what it meant that they'd not even had time to sling them over their shoulders again. Where could nearly 50 teenagers disappear to in the middle of the wilderness, without a single item of food or water?

He dug around in a pack until he pulled out a satchel of food. He tossed a packet of dried berries at Raven and opened one for himself.

"When it's light, I'll search the area," he said, speaking as he thought. "There's got to be some sign of where they went and why."

When she spoke, Raven's voice was uncharacteristically small. "What if it was Reapers?" She hadn't touched her food. "What if they've got them and –"

"No," Bellamy said, and he wasn't sure whether he was refusing the fact or just the thought. "I've seen Lincoln's drawings of the Reapers, and black-clad military is definitely not their style."

Raven fell silent and Bellamy stood again, pacing back and forth. He'd never been good at waiting and always even worse at not knowing. His stomach was a twisted knot of anxiety and he couldn't even tell which agony ended where. He looked up to see if it was day yet but the grey light of dawn was only just visible.

He felt a pang of longing for Octavia, or at least for knowing that she was alright. In the end he had known that Lincoln was her best chance of survival, but it had been the hardest thing he'd ever done letting her go. It went against every instinct in his body.

"Don't- don't leave me here again," Raven spoke suddenly and he turned to her, pulled from thoughts of Octavia. Raven had been watching him pace, and her eyes were openly pleading as she looked up at him. She swallowed and he knew it was to suppress the fear. "I'd rather die now than lie here not knowing if anyone else was alive, if they'd ever come back."

He crossed to her in three strides and dropped to one knee beside her. Raven was just like him– hiding her emotions behind anger, sarcasm and a brave face – and it was easy to forget that she felt anything at all.

"They're alive, Raven, I'm sure of it." He had to be sure of it. The idea that he and Raven were the only ones left, that they'd had a hundred lives and lost them all...that Clarke was dead; he couldn't allow that thought to lodge in his mind.

She stared at him for a moment, searching his face, and then she drew herself together and nodded.

"Yeah, you're right," she said and she sounded like her old self, if a little tired.

Even though they were both so certain, he still reached out and took her hand again as he sat down by her side, leaning against a crate.

It was amazing how the human body could overrule the mind. Bellamy woke to find that the entrance of the Drop Ship was lit up with mid-morning sun, and that he and Raven had both, somehow, fallen asleep. He was sitting in the exact same position, his hand still entwined with Raven's and resting on her stomach.

Her fingers felt cold in his hand and he froze, his stomach dropping as he searched her frantically for signs of life. It felt like a century as he waited to see her chest rise, and he groaned with open relief when it did.

"Oh my god," he moaned, dropping his forehead against their clasped hands. "Do not scare me like that again, Raven."

"Wha'?" she murmured, responding to her name. Her eyes fluttered open slightly and she stared blearily up at him.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, reaching out to place the back of his hand on her cheek. She was cold and clammy, but that could just be because of the dawn chill. He didn't know enough about this sort of thing; he needed Clarke.

"Brilliant," she mumbled, closing her eyes again and turning her head away. He was about to snap that her sarcastic bravado was no good to him, when a noise outside the Drop Ship caught his attention. His heart pounded as he leaped to his feet.

He scanned around him desperately for a weapon, and pounced on a discarded gun. He checked it quickly to find that it had two bullets left. It certainly wasn't enough to protect them if another Grounder army was at the gate but he'd be dammed id he just lay down before them. He'd rather die with a dozen of their arrows in him than let them march in and take him prisoner. He knew Raven would feel the same way.

He glanced at her but she appeared to have fallen asleep again. He was all there was to protect both of them now. He raised the weapon and padded silently towards the entrance. He blinked as the bright sunlight hit his eyes.

Before he stepped out of the flapping sheets, Bellamy took a deep breath, filling himself with courage for whatever it was he was about to face. He took some strength from the thought that it probably couldn't be worse than what he'd already seen.

He took the final step, his gun snapping up and his eyes flying around the ruined clearing. Something shifted amid the wreckage and his gun locked onto a frozen figure standing amid the charred bodies.

"Don't shoot!"

It was a man, but not a Grounder. Bellamy's arms trembled on the gun as he recognised the man as one of their own. Not one of the Hundred, but still one of their own...

"Who are you?!" Bellamy shouted, forcing himself to keep the weapon pinned on the man's chest. He jerked it forwards demanding an answer. He'd shoot the bastard through the heart if he so much as looked to be a threat.

The man lifted his hand in surrender. "Councillor Kane," he called back, his voice articulate and familiar. Bellamy's weapon dropped an inch as he studied the man closer. He recognised that face now that he'd heard him speak. But how could he be on the ground?

"You're Bellamy Blake, aren't you?" Kane said, his hands dropping slightly too. He looked warily at Bellamy but he didn't seem terrified of him.

"How are you here?" Bellamy said, ignoring the question. He needed answers; he was done with mysteries.

"We landed the Ark," Kane said slowly, "at least parts of it. We landed Mecha station and we saw smoke..." he lowered one hand and indicated the blackened ruins around him. Bellamy refused to look over the skeletons again; they still made him feel physically sick.

He was more focused on Kane's words anyway. His gun lowered another few inches. They'd landed the stations? He didn't know how it was possible but surely the man standing there was visible proof. He didn't want to allow the flicker of hope to grow, but he was desperate to cling to the idea that they were no longer alone. For so long he'd wanted the Hundred to make their own lives on the ground. He'd thought they didn't need the Ark or anyone to help them. But that had been before wave after wave of destruction, before they'd faced an army, before Raven had been shot, before everyone else had vanished into thin air.

A movement behind Kane sent his gun snapping back up. It was a woman, dressed like Kane, climbing through a part of the destroyed fence. She froze when she saw Kane and Bellamy with his gun pointed at her. Kane looked over his shoulder and held out a warning hand to her, telling her to stay put.

"This is Dr. Griffin," he said to Bellamy. "Her daughter was one of the Hundred."

Griffin. Bellamy's brain clicked and suddenly the woman's blonde plait over one shoulder and the quick darting of her eyes made sense. Clarke looked a lot like her mother, more in mannerism than in appearance. His breathing quickened at the thought of Clarke and her unknown fate.

"Clarke Griffin?" he called out and it was confirmed when the woman's whole body jolted at the name. Her eyes snapped to Bellamy's.

"Is she here?" she called, taking a step forward, forgetting Bellamy's gun in her hope. "Is she alright?"

Bellamy lowered his gun and passed a hand across his eyes. When he'd come to face the monster outside the Drop Ship, the last thing he'd expected was to face the parents of the teenagers he's lead and lost.

"How many of you are there?" Kane asked as Abby's pace forward quickened. His expression was graver than Abby's - he'd seen the despair on Bellamy's face at Abby's question.

"Just two," Bellamy replied, stepping aside, his sign that he was willing to let them pass. Raven Reyes and myself."

Abby halted and her expression fell. "Where's Clarke?"

Bellamy couldn't meet her eyes as he replied. "I don't know. There was... a battle and when I woke up they were all gone, except Raven. She's not in good shape though, she was shot."

Abby's gaze lost focus for a moment as she processed the news that she'd arrived only to find her daughter missing. Bellamy felt sick again and turned his head away from the sight. As if it hadn't been bad enough that he's lost Clarke and the others.

Kane lay a hand on Abby's shoulder and she blinked, returning to reality. She looked up at Bellamy.

"Raven? Let me see her."

Bellamy held back the covering and Abby jogged up the door. When Kane followed her more slowly, he paused beside Bellamy, his eyes searching Bellamy's averted ones.

"Whatever happened," he said quietly. "I'm sure you did everything you could. Leadership is a heavy burden to bear, especially when lives depend upon your choices."

Bellamy glanced up and met his eyes; leader to leader the two men stared at each other. Bellamy saw his own torment reflected in Kane's eyes and he knew that the older man understood every inch of his own guilt and pain. Except that unlike Kane, Bellamy had never asked to be a leader. Yes, he'd wanted it back in the early days after landing, he'd even thought he was good at it, but he never asked for the weight of a hundred lives to be pressing on his mind.


	3. Chapter 3

It was lucky, in a morbid way, that Clarke had had to perform so many medieval surgeries in their short time on the ground. It meant that when Abby said she'd have to remove the bullet from Raven's body, Bellamy could show her their collection of makeshift and stolen instruments.

Abby ran her fingers over the various knives and torturous-looking tools and Bellamy was sure there was pride in her eyes.

"We'd all be dead if it weren't for Clarke," he said quietly as he stood beside her. "She saved us all, dozens of times."

Abby swallowed and a tear blotted the floor at her feet. She shook her hair from her eyes. "I'll need clean water and...what were you using to sterilise?"

Bellamy showed her the crate of Monty's moonshine and she actually laughed with amazement.

"I knew we made the right decision sending teenagers to the ground," she murmured. Bellamy chose not to retort; now was not the time to raise his anger at the people of the Ark sending 100 teenagers, his sister included, on a deadly mission.

Watching Abby Griffin work brought back painful memories for Bellamy. Seeing her hands deftly wipe away blood and her eyes narrow as she analysed an injury, he was reminded of all the times he'd stood across from Clarke while she saved the life of one of their number.

He was a wreck, between the effort of constantly suppressing those dangerous thoughts and his unexpected fear for Raven. He hadn't realised through the night, not until that morning when he'd thought she'd given up on him, that the thought of losing her deeply terrified him. He didn't think he could cope with another loss. He couldn't cope without one other person who knew what they had been through. He needed Raven Reyes to live.

Kane didn't seem to care that he was exhausted, aching and more focused on Abby and Raven than answering his endless questions. He shot them at Bellamy like Grounder arrows, one after another, until Bellamy wanted to scream.

He told them of their camp that was now smoking ruins, he told them of their recent encounters with the Grounders, of the Reapers, of the war that the Ark had crash landed in the middle of. Emotionlessly he described the final battle which, it seemed, no one had won.

"So do you think it was these Grounders that took the others of the Hundred?" Kane asked, starting on another lap of the floor. Bellamy bit his tongue against snapping at him to stop pacing and concentrated on wiping away the blood as Abby instructed.

"No," Bellamy said. "It was someone different. Raven said they acted like they were military. And they had guns."

Kane stopped pacing. "Guns?" He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. "A few weeks ago we thought no one on earth had survived and now we have to deal with warring groups, some of them with guns?"

Bellamy shot him an acid look. "Yeah, must be tough for you dealing with all that."

Abby glanced up at him and then at Kane. "They've survived against all the odds. It's remarkable what they've been able to achieve, look at this place."

She tied a knot in the string she was using to bind Raven's wound and cut it with a knife. "It's nowhere near perfect but it removed the bullet and should have stopped the bleeding. What coagulant did you give her? She should have bled out already with the mess in there."

Bellamy took his hands from Raven. He looked at his hands, covered in her blood, and began to vigorously wipe it off with a rag.

"One of the Grounders had medicine that we used on Finn. It's from some plant around here."

"Amazing," murmured Abby, her medical side taking over.

Bellamy stood up and faced Kane. "So what do you plan on doing now? You must have come down here with some big plan for saving us all, right?" He didn't want to sound like a child looking for an adult to make it all better again, but he couldn't deny the needing tone to his voice. It had been so long since someone else had been making the decisions of life and death.

Kane and Abby exchanged a glance and Bellamy's stomach did a sickening flip. "The plan to save us all was to come down here," Kane replied grimly. "We were running out of air, the ground was our only option."

"We should go back to Mecha Station," Abby said, rising to her feet as well.

Bellamy squinted towards the entrance of the Drop Ship, trying to judge how much time had passed since he'd discovered Kane and Abby in the clearing. It had been dawn then but he felt as though he'd been tensely watching Abby work on Raven for hours.

"How long did it take you to come from where you landed?" he asked.

"About half a day," Kane replied frowning. "Maybe more."

Bellamy slumped down against a crate, exhaustion deep in every bone. "We won't make it there before dark. The daylight has been getting shorter and it's already well after midday."

It was clear that Kane contemplated challenging him. Bellamy watched the struggle cross his face but he was too tired for another battle. If Kane wanted to take his chances in the woods in the dark, he could go ahead, but Bellamy and Raven would be staying in the safety of the Drop Ship through the night.

Kane though clearly wasn't the same arrogant man he had seemed on the Ark, because eventually he gave a curt nod.

"We'll set off at first light then."

Armed and wary, Bellamy ventured out to where the wall had once marked the edge of their safety zone. By some miracle, some sections had survived both the Grounder attack and the explosion. It was in one of them that he found one of their water collection tarpaulins still standing. He dipped the empty canisters into the water and then splashed his face. The water tasted bitter – ashy – but it felt wonderful against his aching muscles.

He stood for a moment, studying the forest around him. It seemed so peaceful in a way, with the late afternoon sun filtering through the treetops. It had been their paradise when they'd arrived. But his eyes moved swiftly from tree to tree, certain that he could see a Grounder hiding behind every one and an arrow flying through every clearing.

He turned back to the Drop Ship. He could never think of this place as his home again. It would always be the site where his people had stood, and died.

Once again he pulled the heavy door shut, sealing them in the Ship for the night. Kane and Abby were on the far side of the room, talking quietly and rapidly between themselves. Bellamy hovered a moment before moving across to where he'd set Raven up with as many blankets as he could find. It was hard to tell in the weak artificial lights inside, but he thought she looked a bit better than before. He stretched out on the layered blankets beside her, feeling the comforting rhythm of her breathing against his shoulder.

"We're going to find a way through this," he murmured before he closed his eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

Despite his exhaustion, Bellamy didn't sleep much. He was wide awake long before dawn and long before Kane or Abby stirred. He was lying on his back, staring into the murky blackness above him when he felt Raven shift.

He lifted himself up on an elbow and found her eyes shining in the gloom.

"Well, look who's awake," he commented dryly, but his face split into a grin. It felt insanely good to see her looking back at him. She could say all the harsh, sarcastic comments she wanted as long as she promised to stay alive from now on.

She gave him a weak smile in return.

"How'd you feel?" he asked, pulling himself into a sitting position.

Her forehead creased as she clearly thought about his question. She licked her lips.

"Okay..."

"Okay?" he repeated, his eyes flickering over her body.

"Yeah," she replied gingerly, her voice raspy, and then her eyes locked onto his. "Why do I feel okay?"

Bellamy glanced across to where the shapes of Kane and Abby were blurred by blankets.

"We had some help. I gather you knew Dr. Griffin from the Ark?"

Raven's frown deepened. "Abby? Did you get the radio working again...?"

Bellamy sighed and heaved himself to his knees. He reached for the canister of water near Raven's foot. "Here, have some water and then I'll explain," he said.

"Ow! Watch it!" Raven hissed as he knocked her thigh with the canister, and then her eyes widened. "I felt that! That hurt. I can feel my legs!"

Bellamy tapped her knee, not quite daring to hope that Abby was that good. She'd explained that she could remove the bullet but she had no way of knowing if permanent damage had been done to the spine. Bellamy had prepared himself for the fact that Raven would be permanently paralysed.

Raven exhaled with exhausted laughter, her smile wide. He could see that her eyes were shining in the dim lights but he didn't fault her for showing emotion right then. He felt somewhere between bursting into laughter and manic tears himself.

Finally, finally, something had gone right.

Tearful but smiling she met his eyes. "How-?"

He crouched down again and unscrewed the canister. "The good news? We have the reinforcements from the Ark that would have been useful two weeks ago. Bad news? They're about as vulnerable down here as we are."

"They made it from the Ark?" she gasped and shook her head. "But they didn't have any more ships. There was no way to get them all down."

"Well they found a way," he said. "They landed the Ark itself, or at least parts of it. Apparently Mecha Station is half a day hike from here."

Raven stared at him open mouthed. He almost laughed at the thought that something had finally rendered Raven Reyes speechless.

"Mecha," she murmured wistfully. "Home..."

He had forgotten that she was from Mecha Station. He felt no longing for the grey corridors of Factory Station where he had grown up, but he could see from the expression on Raven's face that memories of her home weren't only negative. He'd never thought to ask her about life before earth, just like he'd never thought to ask much about Clarke's life, or Finn's, or any of them. There was so much he never knew.

"We hosted Dr. Griffin and Councillor Kane for the night," he said, nodding to the other side of the level where they had slept.

"It's good to see you again, Raven," said a voice behind him and he sprang to his feet, spinning around. His pulse thudded but it was only Abby standing behind him, smiling genuinely down at Raven.

"Abby!" Raven said breathlessly and it was clear that even though Bellamy had told her, some part of her hadn't quite believed it until then. She gave a pointless struggle to sit up, only to have both Bellamy and Abby's hands on her shoulders hold her firmly down.

"We only just fixed you," Bellamy scolded, "Can you last maybe half a day before you do something stupid?" Raven tore herself away from her amazement at Abby to shoot him a venomous look. He found he was smiling and it felt strange, wrong.

"Abby I'm sorry," Raven began awkwardly, "...Clarke..."

Abby swallowed but that was the only sign of any inner emotions.

"How long till dawn?" she said, changing the subject and turning to Bellamy. He glanced at the door where a barely visible strip of light was beginning to show around the door.

"Not long."

"I should wake Marcus," Abby said. She smiled again at Raven and even though Bellamy knew she would be in torment over Clarke, the smile was sincere and affectionate.

"How exactly did you two know each other on the Ark?" Bellamy asked as Abby walked away and he crouched down beside Raven. He followed Abby with his eyes as she crossed the ship. A respected councillor and rebellious teenage mechanic seemed an unlikely friendship.

"We helped each other out," Raven replied simply. "Seeing as you won't even let me try and sit up, I'm guessing you're not going to let me walk to Mecha, are you?" She narrowed her eyes at him.

"Nope," he replied. "I was going to carry you." He knew she would hate the idea and he was amused by the furious scowl that crossed her face. He didn't think there was anyone more stubborn and proud in their camp, and considering that included Octavia, that was saying something. He sobered quickly at the painful thought of his sister and forced himself to temporarily push it from his mind. He had trusted Lincoln with her and he had to hope that was the right decision; for now he had to concentrate on keeping himself and Raven alive.


	5. Chapter 5

As they walked out of the Drop Ship and across the remnants of their home, Bellamy could feel his own tension reflected in Raven's body. Before they had even reached the wall, his heart had leaped half a dozen times with cracking branches and flapping wings. Every noise felt as though it signaled death, or worse.

"If there were Grounders out here," Kane said over his shoulder as he paced ahead of Bellamy, "What would we be seeing?"

Images flashed in Bellamy's mind; arrows flying from nothing, a death star slicing into a skull, an axe thudding into a chest. His mouth was dry. "Nothing," he replied grimly. "And then death."

After that they walked in silence, each one lost deep in their own thoughts. Raven drifted off at some point, her iron grip on his shoulder slackening and then falling. Bellamy's mind hummed with adrenalin; there was no room for his mind to wander as every movement around them sent his body into a panic. When had he become afraid of everything?

Despite his anxieties, there was no sign of a living soul as they walked. They had set off in the opposite direction to their usual paths, to his relief the opposite direction to the Grounders territory, but it still didn't comfort him that the woods appeared to be deserted.

"Bellamy," Abby called softly and he dragged himself from his scrutiny of the trees. She was standing ahead of him on a gentle rise. "Come and look."

Wearily he climbed up to her; one small rise felt like a mountain. As he came to stand beside her he lifted his head and the breath left his body.

A valley of colour stretched away beneath him. Here the trees weren't just a hundred shades of green, but amber and ochre, rust and gold side by side. It was the trees turning at autumn, he'd read the science behind it, but he was not prepared for the beauty of the scene before him. The valley they were following sloped down to where water sparkled in the sunlight. A lake stretched an impossibly long distance, almost to the horizon, and the water seemed to sway and ripple with every breath of wind. It smelled different here. At the camp the scent of damp leaves and earth had become overpowering, but here the air was sharp and crisp, the freshness itself taking on a scent.

"Let's have a rest here," Abby said quietly, her eyes intense on Bellamy as he took in the scene below. She signalled to Kane to stop and he gladly dropped his heavy cargo to the ground. Abby pattered down the slope to him. Bellamy stood, his lungs bursting with the vastness in front of him. This was how he'd felt when they'd first opened those Drop Ship doors. This was how he'd felt watching Octavia spin in giddy circles amid the ferns and flowers.

"Raven," he called gently, reluctantly dragging his eyes from the view. He knelt down on the ground and eased Raven against a tree. She blinked a few times, frowning, looking as though she was about to swear at him.

""Look," he said before she could, and pointed. She lifted her head, focused, and froze. He turned to take in the view again, drinking it like clean, cool water on a hot day.

"Oh my god," she breathed. "I'd forgotten..."

She didn't need to explain. He knew that she too was reliving her first moments on earth.

They sat there for an hour they probably couldn't spare, because none of them could bear to leave the stunning sight behind. There was darkness and death behind them, and Bellamy felt cold dread at the thought of what was ahead.

"I wish we could stay here forever," Raven murmured, and it was as if she'd read his mind.

They had to keep moving though and within ten minutes they were back in the dense woodland, the rich smells of earth and moss flooding Bellamy's senses.

"Bellamy, what are we going to do?" Raven said suddenly, breaking the long silence. She spoke quietly and where Kane and Abby walked side by side ahead, they wouldn't have been able to hear. Bellamy glanced at her.

"We're going to Mecha Station," he replied flatly.

Raven's fingers tightened on his jacket. "You know that's not what I meant."

He did know but how was he supposed to answer her question? He'd set himself up as a leader of the 100, someone who knew the way to survival. He'd failed everyone.

"Bellamy!" she implored and he threw her an exasperated look. He shifted her in his arms, pulling her higher, even though she was barely any weight to carry.

"I don't know, Raven! What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to say that we're going to find them," she snapped. "I want you to say that we won't stop until we find Finn and Clarke and the others!"

"And where do you propose we start, Raven?" he replied, his voice heated. Ahead of them Abby glanced back.

Raven didn't reply and he marched on, each footstep forcing his anger into the earth. He wasn't angry at her, only at himself and the fact that he didn't know.

"We'll start at Mecha Station," Raven said suddenly, her voice absent of its previous aggression. "We'll meet with the Ark survivors and then we will find a way."

Bellamy fixed his eyes on a point in the distance and clenched his jaw. "I don't know what to do," he admitted quietly. The confession didn't bring him shame as it once would have; it only solidified the despair filling his chest.

Raven's fingers suddenly wrapped iron tight around his arm and he jolted at the cold touch of her other hand on his cheek. Guided by her touch he was forced to meet her eyes.

"We will find a way," she said with the Raven conviction he knew not to mess with. Her eyes were grave but determined. "You don't have to do it alone any more, Bellamy. It's up to you and I to find them and we can do it. Together."


	6. Chapter 6

There should have been celebration when the 100 was reunited with their people. How many of them had dreamed about those moments as they lay awake in the camp and looked up at the night sky?

Bellamy felt as though we was a poor prize as Abby and Kane returned to Mecha.

People openly stared as he followed Kane and Abby towards the large, unnatural bulk of the station.

"This is awful," Raven murmured in his arms and he silently agreed. The people of the Ark knew who he was of course, and they knew what he had done. And they also knew now that he and Raven were all that was left of their 100 children. He could tell which of the people in the crowd had been parents of those sent to the ground because the blame and resentment burned into him as he passed.

There was silence as they moved through the crowds inside the ship. He was relieved then they finally reached the far side of the cargo bay where everyone was gathered, and Abby held a door open for him.

"Through here," she said, her eyes gentle. "I'll give you a moment away from the crowds. I'm sure they have many questions but only when you're ready. Take as long as you need."

Bellamy's chest tightened. It wasn't just that Abby had the same tenderness with everyone that Clarke did; it was that she embodied motherhood. Bellamy had loved his mother but she had never been able to afford such kindness and gentleness.

"Thanks, Abby," Raven said. She sounded equally as depressed as Bellamy felt. When Abby sealed the door behind them, he lowered Raven to the ground. They were in one of the small service rooms, bare except for a few crates which presumably held supplies. Propping herself up against one of them, Raven trailed her fingers over the wall.

"It's just like I remember," she said sadly.

"Bet you never thought your home would be on earth."

She withdrew her fingers, curling them into a fist. "No."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, each staring glumly at the ground and gathering their thoughts.

"What do we tell them?" Raven asked, indicating the door where presumably the Ark survivors were waiting to hear the fate of their children. "We don't even understand ourselves."

"We tell them that the 100 fought bravely and that many of them died in a war against the Grounders. We tell them that the survivors have vanished and that we need their help to find them."

He met Raven's gaze which was dubious. "You know we can't find them alone," he said. "They have food and medicine, maybe even weapons. I don't like it any more than you do, but we need the Arkians to help us find Clarke and the others."

With visible effort she sat up straight. "How soon can we start?"

Bellamy couldn't help but smile faintly. If he had to be in this with anyone, he was lucky it was Raven. He'd never met anyone so determined and strong. Even Clarke lacked the complete conviction with which Raven seemed to face life.

They were interrupted by the door sliding open. Abby stood there clasping two bottles of water and a familiar packet of dehydrated food. That was one thing he had not missed at all about the Ark. Even though they had had their fair share of hunger on the ground, the roasted meat and fresh forest greens they'd fed on had been the most amazing food he'd ever encountered.

"Thought you might like something to eat," Abby said, handing them the bottles. "You're looking much better, Raven" she said, sounding surprised. She crouched down in front of her. "Mind if I check your stitches?"

"Knock yourself out," Raven said and pulled up her jacket.

Bellamy was surprised how much had been achieved in the short station time since the landed but he probably shouldn't have been. These people had been running a space station after all. It was only because they had been a bunch of inexperienced teenagers with no food or weapons that it had taken them so long and so many deaths to act the same.

"When we came in," Bellamy said, taking the moment of silence, "it looked like they'd already begun to build defences."

"They have," said Abby. "Before Kane and I set out, he began to organise scouting parties, foraging and hunting and some defences. All we had to go on was your warnings of the Grounders and we didn't know what to expect."

"Do you plan on staying here?" Bellamy asked, surprised. He hadn't really thought what the Arkians would be doing next. He'd never expected any of them to reach the ground. The idea of his people setting up their homes on the earth still seemed awkward.

"For now," Abby said, motioning for Raven to lower her clothes again. She nodded. "They're looking fine. It's a good thing you're young and fit, it'll make your recovery a lot quicker."

"When you say scouting parties," Raven said, ignoring her medical pass, "what are they scouting for?"

"The other stations, mostly," Abby sighed, rocking back on her heels. She passed a hand wearily over her eyes and for the first time Bellamy considered that it would have been terrifying on the station. He'd seen the explosions in the sky and he knew that not all of the stations had survived. "But also signs of civilisation."

"Like ruins?" Raven said.

Bellamy shook his head, his eyes on Abby. "She means Grounders. Except civilisation is not the word I'd use."

"We need to find the others," Raven said insistently. She leaned towards Abby, her eyes bright. "We need to get out there with whatever weapons you have and figure out what happened to them. Bellamy's right, they couldn't just have vanished into thin air. Which means the Grounders must have them."

"Or the Reapers," Bellamy added darkly.

Raven shot him a fierce look. "No," she stated firmly. Bellamy sighed. He wanted to hope not as well but how could they be sure? All he knew was that if the Grounders had them, they might still be alive, but if the Reapers had them...well, then he hoped they were dead.

Abby held up her hands to silence them.

"I know you've been on your own for a long time," she said and Raven crossed her arms defensively. "I know you've only had yourselves to rely on, but not anymore. We are finding food and water, we are setting up defences and we will find what happened to the others, not just the 100 but the rest of the Ark as well. But you two need time to recover. You," she pointed at Raven," will not be getting up until I say so. Is that clear?" She stared Raven down until eventually, Raven gave a miniscule, sullen nod.

"And you need to eat and rest as well, Bellamy," she said firmly. "I will get more food and water sent in here for you both and some bedding."

She rose without giving them a chance to retort and the door had closed behind her before Bellamy could even form a thought. The air inside the station was blowing warm from somewhere and he suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired.

"Bullshit," Raven said grumpily, her arms still firmly crossed over her chest. She was glaring at the floor. Bellamy heaved himself to his feet and pushed the button for the door. The light flashed red and the door did not open.

"Locked," Bellamy declared pointlessly.

"It's as if they don't even trust us," Raven said, rolling her eyes.


	7. Chapter 7

Bellamy slept for close to 24 hours. Perhaps it was the shock setting in like Abby said, but he suspected it was because of the grey walls and locking doors. There was something about being back on a part of the Ark that made the knot of tension in his stomach loosen. He may have hated being a janitor on the Ark but he was beginning to think that was better than being responsible for a 100 lives on the ground.

When he woke his head was pounding again and his mouth was paper dry. He sat up and looked around. It took him a minute to remember where he was but then he spotted Raven sleeping beside him, wrapped up in the blue Ark blankets and frowning in her sleep. He wondered if she was dreaming of Finn.

He pushed his own blankets aside and pulled himself up on the wall. They were still in the little room Abby had given them. Water bottles and some packs of food sat on a crate near the door. He took one of the bottles and drank half in one breath, trying to kick his brain into gear.

He felt fuzzy, as though his thoughts wouldn't quite come in to focus. He tipped the remnants of the bottle over his head and gasped at the shock of the water. It worked though. He shook the droplets from his hair – which had gotten far too long – and rubbed his face and he felt more alive than he had in days.

He left Raven sleeping and, finding the door unlocked, slipped out. There wasn't a soul in the cargo area but he followed the sound of voices up to the hatches. The people of the Ark were enjoying the warmth of sunshine on their skin for the first time in their lives. Many were simply standing still, their faces upturned to the sky and their eyes closed.

On the shore of the lake a substantial camp was taking form; there was the beginning of a wall, there were channels and tarps set up for water, there were little shanties set up, made of pieces of Ark, tree branches and parachute. Already the area was beginning to look like a village.

Bellamy watched for a while, unsure how he felt at the sight of his people colonising the earth. It seemed different to the 100 doing the same. They had built and cleared from survival, necessity alone. It felt as though the Ark had bigger motives and he couldn't help but think back to his history classes where empires had taken over 'virgin' lands.

"Do you feel better?"

He turned to find Abby emerging from the hatch behind him. She looked more tired than she had before; parts of her plait had flown free and frizzed in the damp lake air.

He shrugged. "Sure. What are they doing down there?"

He nodded to where Kane was surrounded by a group of men and women. They were talking with bowed heads and tensed shoulders.

"They're planning to find the rest of the Ark," Abby said, joining him. She shielded her eyes against the lake's glare as she surveyed the camp.

"Do you know where they landed?"

She shook her head, her lips pursed. "We have the region, but it's a hundred square miles."

Bellamy's gaze swept over the dark forests and mountains in the distance. There were so many people scattered wide in those unforgiving lands, facing who knew what dangers. Somewhere out there were his people. He hoped they were alive and together. But even if they weren't he would find them. He owed them that much.

Abby was studying his expression. His guilt and determination must have been written in the crease between his eyes and the set of his jaw because she lay a hand gently on his arm.

"I believe you did your best, Bellamy," she said quietly.

Bellamy looked down at her hand on his arm. He had the compulsion to shake it off. He didn't deserve her kindness. He had battled with her daughter for leadership. They had locked heads at every step and at times he had wanted nothing more than for her to disappear. And now Clarke was missing. She was out there somewhere just like the rest, facing who knew what horrors the land held. Now, when he wanted her to be there arguing with him more than ever, she wasn't. She was missing and it was all his fault.

It took five days before Raven was able to escape Abby's prison cell. She was forbidden from being up until Abby gave the okay, which she'd said wouldn't be for at least a week, probably two, but Raven wasn't one for following orders. And a week was an eternity on the ground.

During those five days, Bellamy worked alongside Kane. He was surprised at how much respect the Arkians showed him. He'd expected to be reduced to a teenager at best and criminal at worst. He'd stayed away from the crowds at first, painfully aware of their eyes upon him and imagining the dark thoughts going through their minds. But again and again he'd been sought out by Kane or one of the other leaders and he'd found himself describing how they'd collected water, which berries caused hallucinations, what the warning signs were of the poisonous fog.

Scouting parties went out daily. Using the lake and the mountains, a woman named Victoria calculated their position on the maps that had been sent with them. They were on the southern shore of Lake Jameson, about 30 miles northeast of the Drop Ship and 20 miles southeast of Mount Weather. The terrain to the north of the lake became rocky, mountainous and treacherous.

They were about three days hike from the ocean to the east where he hoped Lincoln and Octavia were safe. He looked at the maps with Kane but his mind wasn't on the best place to set up other camps or where the other stations might have landed. He was scanning the terrain and wondering where his people could have gone.

He wished he knew the location of the Grounders Village because that was the only place he could think of to start looking. If the Grounders had taken his people he would barbeque every last one of them to get them back. They'd think Raven's ring of fire at the Drop Ship was a happy ending after he took his revenge.

On the evening of their sixth day at Mecha Station, he was sitting on top of the station watching the sun sink behind Mount Weather when Raven joined him.

"Did you climb up here all by yourself?" he asked.

She eased herself down beside him, hiding a wince. "Don't tell Abby."

"I'm sure she didn't expect you to follow orders," Bellamy replied. "If you did, then I'd really be worried about your health."

Raven punched him on the arm, not the gentle, joking punch Octavia used to do but a proper one that was going to leave a bruise. He rubbed his arm but grinned at her.

"It's good to have you back." Truth be told he'd been feeling lonely without Raven. He was acutely aware that everyone else had only just landed on the ground - they stopped a hundred times a day to look at the sky, they paused mid hunt to look at a flower. They hadn't crucified him like he'd expected all along, but he didn't feel a part of them.

The 100 hadn't been a part of the Ark for a long time. For many of them since long before they had been sent to the ground.

Their time on the ground had tested them but it had forged them into new, stronger people. He wouldn't have recognised his old self in his grey janitor's uniform and smooth hair.

The Ark was on the ground but Bellamy and Raven weren't with their people.

They would do everything in their power to change that.


	8. Chapter 8

The woods seemed to be teeming with deer and rabbits but two weeks passed and there wasn't a single sign of human life. It was unnerving, not just because Bellamy still had the vain hope that his people would come wandering out of the woods perfectly unharmed, but because he knew there were other Grounders out there and they'd be seeking revenge for the final battle.

He went on every hunting trip he could, hoping that he'd find something in the forest that would give him a clue to what had happened. When she was given a pass by Abby, Raven accompanied him on a gathering expedition around the lake shore. They walked at the back of the group, choosing to keep to themselves instead of hear every exclamation of wonder from the people in front. They walked in silence for a long time, picking at bushes and reeds as they went. Everyone carried baskets that one of the men had made from reeds and into them went amaranth leaves and cattails which were plentiful along the shore. Raven found a nest of duck eggs which they wrapped in soft leaves to keep them whole.

"Are you well enough to hike yet?" Bellamy asked as they began walking again. The others were far ahead of them now, walking higher up the bank.

Raven switched her basket to the other hip. "I've been well enough for days," she said bitterly, though Bellamy suspected Abby knew what she was doing. Though given the circumstances he wouldn't have been any better than Raven if he'd been the one restricted. If he hadn't been able to be out in the woods, his mind ticking over all the possibilities, then he probably would have gone insane.

"You have an idea, don't you?" Raven said suddenly, coming to a halt. She looked at Bellamy attentively. He rubbed his hand across the back of his hair, thinking. He did have an idea, though it was less on an idea and more of a desperate last resort.

"I think we need to find the Grounder village," he said carefully, measuring his words. He knew Raven would jump head first into any plan that might give her Finn back, and he didn't want to be responsible for another death.

"How the hell are we supposed to do that?" Raven asked exasperatedly, beginning to walk again. Each footstep revealed her frustration.

"The bridge," he said, matching her steps. "We know it's the path to the village."

"What do we do once we've found it?" she asked.

This was the part of the plan he hadn't really thought through. All he knew was that he had to do something. Despite what Raven had said about the men who came into the Drop Ship, the Grounders were the only force he knew capable of disappearing nearly fifty teenagers. The Reapers didn't have the finesse for this kind of mystery and the Grounders sure as hell had a motive. Perhaps they'd stolen guns from a depot just like the one he and Clarke had found.

"It should be pretty obvious if they're holding fifty teenagers prisoner," he replied, evading the fact that he didn't really know.

Raven slid him a sideways look that told him she hadn't missed it.

"So you're asking me if I'm ready to go searching for a dangerous village of people who want to kill us on the hope that they are holding our people prisoner and we'll somehow set them free?"

Bellamy frowned. "You don't have to make it sound so negative..."

"I'm in," Raven said.

They discussed whether to involve more people but in the end they were the only two who really knew what they were up against. Besides, sneaking into the Grounders village wasn't something you could do with an entourage.

Their plan, as it were, was simple. Wait until a hunting party was heading along the river, join it, and then when they got to the fork, follow a 'deer' along the southern stream. That, Bellamy hoped, should be simple enough to get them away from the group and running as fast as they could towards the bridge. From the fork in the river he estimated it should take them only a couple of hours to reach the bridge if they moved swiftly.

He wasn't convinced that Raven was able to run or would be able to fight if needed but he knew there was no way to stop her going. He had a feeling she'd find Finn even if it killed her. He just hoped it wouldn't come to that.

"What do you think they'll do when we don't come back?" she asked as they loaded up on weapons; makeshift blades went into loops on their belts, a freshly made spear was hung across Bellamy's back.

"They'll return to Mecha," he replied simply. He knew they wouldn't look for them. The Ark had survived on one simple philosophy: the many before the few. And that would mean that if they went missing while hunting, they wouldn't risk more lives by searching. It was not a philosophy that Bellamy embraced.

"Abby will know what we're doing," Raven said."She'll know we're looking for the others."

Bellamy shrugged as he slid the last blade into his belt. He straightened up and looked towards the valley where they were headed.

It was so easy. Raven began to drift off to the left of the group, each step taking her a bit further from the main pack. The group of six hunters were quiet on their feet and stealthy, but they were scared of what lay in the woods. The beauty of earth was pushed to the back of their minds when they were deep in the dark forests with Kane's warnings ringing in their ears.

Bellamy was listening to the woods too, but not for the sound of Grounders for once. His head shot up when Raven's whistle split through the rustling leaves.

"That's Raven. She's found something. You stay on this track, I'll go see," he said, forcing his tone to be calm and natural. He needn't have bothered. It wouldn't even cross their minds that someone would willingly separate from the safety of the pack.

He loped through the trees until he found Raven, perched on a rock, scanning the trees around her. The river was ahead of them; he could hear it running over rocks and the gentle splashing of a small waterfall.

"Ready?" he asked when he stopped beside her.

She turned to him and he saw that her eyes were wide. She looked tense, her eyes flickering about nervously, but she also looked determined.

He knew how she felt. He was afraid of what they were about to do. He'd be an idiot if he wasn't, but that didn't mean he wasn't still one hundred percent prepared to face it if it meant redeeming his mistakes.


	9. Chapter 9

Bellamy nearly jumped out of his skin when Raven materialised beside him.

"How the hell do you do that?!" he gasped, remembering to keep his voice low even through his shock. He glared at her as his heartbeat returned to a semi-normal pace.

She gave him a condescending look. "I had a lot of practice sneaking around growing up," she replied cryptically. "There was movement up ahead. I went to investigate."

Bellamy's frown intensified. "Raven, you can't just go off investigating because you feel like it. Anything could have happened to you!" His voice rose too high and he had to pull himself together. Raven raised an eyebrow at him and he knew she had noted the alarm in his tone.

"Whatever," she said curtly, "But I found Reapers. There's a camp of them about half a mile ahead of us. I followed one all the way there, he never even suspected."

Bellamy felt a leap of panic at the mention of the Reapers. He'd only seen the pictures in Lincoln's notebook and the fear in Clarke's eyes when she described them, but he knew it took a lot to terrify Clarke.

"Bellamy!" Raven hissed and he looked up to find her staring at him intensely. He realised he had been silent, lost in his fear. He cleared his throat, trying to form his racing thoughts into order.

"We should turn back, find another way to the bridge."

"No!" Raven's voice rose too and he glanced around, suddenly certain that the trees were crowded with Reapers. Raven glanced around quickly too and then leaned in towards him, lowering her voice, but her eyes just as fierce.

"They might be our best chance of getting answers! If we capture one, we can force information from it."

Bellamy shuddered involuntarily with the memory of the last time Raven had forced information from someone. He had been surprised at his own cruelty even as he beat Lincoln, but whatever had possessed Raven when she had been sending jolts of electricity into his body had horrified Bellamy.

"And how do you plan on capturing one?" he asked when he had forced his expression to neutral. He'd never want Raven to know how much he had feared but also respected her for what she had done that day. It took a powerful love to be that cruel.

Raven shrugged, peering over the log, her mind clearly already far ahead of them. "I was thinking hide just out of sight and then watch one until it wanders off, an arrow to the kneecap, a club to the head to keep it silent..."

Bellamy stared at her. She and Clarke could not have been more different. So why was he feeling the same inexplicable rush listening to Raven plan torture and murder as he had every time Clarke had begun one of her inspiring speeches?

"What?" she hissed defensively. "Hoping that we'd find the Grounders and hoping they'd have answers and hoping they'd give them to us was a lot of hoping, Bellamy. We're here, the Reapers are here, we have to try."

He hated to admit that she was right. Their plan had been flimsy at best but he had been clinging to it because it was the only plan they could come up with. If they could pull off Raven's psychotic plan, then they might actually be one step closer to finding the rest of the 100.

"Do we go and get the others?" he said carefully.

Raven smiled as she realised he had agreed to her plan. She braced her hands on her knees ready to leap to her feet. He grabbed her arm.

"Hold up, Raven. We need to put a little thought into this. These Reapers are worse than the Grounders."

"We go now," she said firmly, shaking off his arm. "You and I. We'll be quicker and quieter and we can be back at the camp with a Reaper bound and gagged before they even realise we're not still out hunting."

She sprang away before he could even draw breath. Bellamy cursed in a whisper and then leaped to his feet as well.

He could barely keep up with her, partly because she was as quick as a deer and partly because she moved without leaving a trace behind. He had no idea how anyone on the Ark could learn to move through earth lands with such stealth. He had a feeling that it involved a less than legal youth for Raven.

He caught up to her when she was crouched behind an outcrop. He ducked behind the jagged grey rocks beside her, trying to gasp for breath as quietly as possible. Raven wasn't even breathing hard.

"So?" he puffed when he had regained some breath.

She pulled herself slightly higher on the rocks and peered through a crack. He followed. On the other side of their rocks was a steep drop and below them a bonfire reached almost as high as the leaves on the trees. In a clearing around the fire dark shapes were moving in what he realised must be dancing. They beat their chests and stomped their feet and all the time they made screeching, unnerving noises. He'd never heard anything like it in his earth skills class, and he could name the call of almost any animal on earth. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up and he dropped back again, the sight of the dancing monsters below them making his stomach turn.

After a moment longer observing, Raven dropped back beside him. She, at least, looked ruffled by the sight.

"Is this such a good idea?" he breathed. She was silent a moment and he almost wished she would agree with him and they could run as fast as possible back to the camp. Not much made Bellamy feel that way, and he'd never admit it to anyone, but the then again he'd never seen anything as horrifying as the Reapers before.

"If doing this means I get Finn back..." Raven said fiercely, leaving the phrase hanging. She looked at Bellamy. "Wouldn't you do anything to get Clarke back?"

He felt a jolt of electricity go through his body as Raven's intense eyes turned on him and she voiced something that he didn't even know himself. He felt heat rising to his face and looked away from her.

"We need to save them all," he insisted. Raven made a noise in the back of her throat that told him she definitely did not buy it. The neck of his shirt was constricting. But she'd planted the image of Clarke in his head and he knew now that they had to go through with this. It might not work, but if he turned away he would forever be wondering if it had been his cowardice that failed them.

"Let's go," Raven declared as though she knew her words had made up his mind.

And she was gone.

Bellamy took a lungful of air for courage and then followed her.

They made it all the way to the edge of the tree line before something changed. Bellamy's stomach dropped as a animalistic cry rose above the trees. His chest hit the ground and he flattened himself to the dirt. His breath came in terrified gasps as he craned his neck to see ahead.

The Reapers had all stopped dancing. They paused, as if listening to the wail, and then responded in a frenzy of noise and movement. His heart pounded at the cacophony of voices. The first cry had been one of them, he realised it now as the rest of them joined in. They didn't sound human. They didn't even sound like any animal he'd ever heard of. There was nothing natural about the gleaming eyes and dripping red grins that were flashing around the fire.

They were communicating in grunt and strange cries, arms waving off into the trees. Bellamy thought he might pass out as they pointed in his direction, but then their attention turned to the other side of the trees.

They picked up crude but deadly weapons and tumbled out of the clearing.

Bellamy held his breath. He didn't even dare think in the silence that followed. He was terrified that they'd come tearing back across the clearing straight to where he and Raven were pressed helplessly in the dirt. He didn't know what it was that had sent the Reapers off into the trees but he was just glad that it wasn't him.

Gingerly he raised himself up on his elbows, looking around, feeling the adrenalin begin to fade from his blood and leaving his head swimming.

"What now?" he breathed to the spot behind him where he sensed Raven. He could feel her fear, as if it made waves crashing into him.

There was a slithering of leaves and suddenly she was beside him.

"We should look in the cave," she murmured.

His eyes moved to the dark, gaping hole on the other side of the clearing. He'd been afraid she'd say that. They knew from Clarke and Finn's experience that the Reapers liked to keep their treasures in the tunnels and caves, but he couldn't imagine a worse idea that walking in there.

He glanced at her and saw the same apprehension written across her face. For the first time she was hesitating, looking to him to make the first move. He licked his lips and tried to fill himself with courage. He was brave, he knew it, but this was a whole new level of monster.

"Let's move before they come back," he whispered without conviction. He lifted himself up in a crouch and waited for Raven to do the same. They only way they would be able to go in there was together. If her courage failed then his would too, and vice versa.

Raven gave a sharp inhale and rose to her feet. He nodded once and they sprang up, racing across the open space towards the cavern. He felt exposed as they crossed the clearing, but as soon as the rock mouth closed around them he felt even worse. He was painfully aware of the single entrance at their backs and the darkness in front of them.

Raven skidded to a halt beside him a moment later and he saw that she had paused to collect a burning branch from the Reaper's abandoned fire. She lifted it high and threw light into the tunnel before them.

"Here goes," he murmured and she nodded. He put one foot in front of the other and stopped. His courage vanished. He couldn't force himself to take another step into the darkness. The not knowing what lay ahead was far worse than anything his mind could conjure. Raven was still walking, each step looking like it took great effort. She was five feet in front of him, and then ten. He looked behind him at where the mouth of the cave was beginning to show the mauve light of evening. The only thing worse than being in the cave, was being in the cave alone.

"Raven!" Even though he whispered her name, he heard his panic and urgency echoed loud around them in the narrow cave. He saw her silhouette up ahead and sprinted towards her as fast as he dared in the flickering torch light.

When he reached her side, rounding her, the first thing he noticed was the tear tracks down her cheeks glittering in the amber flame light.

"Raven?!" he hissed desperately.

It was if she wasn't there behind her wide, glassy eyes. His fingers dig into her shoulder as he gave her a shake. Panic was zipping through his nervous system, making his head spin. He wrenched the branch from her hand.

Getting no response from her he turned frantically, holding the torch high to throw light in front of them, terrified to see whatever it was that had made Raven catatonic.

The light plummeted and flashed around the walls as the torch fell from his hand and rolled to a stop in the dirt. Bellamy's whole body shook as he took a step back, colliding with Raven.

Ahead of them in the cave, invisible in the darkness now that he'd dropped the torch, bodies were hung from crude metal hooks driven into the stone. He could only think of them as bodies because their grey flesh and grossly contorted limbs couldn't possibly belong to people. In one second of horrified looking he'd seen a body without legs, one hung with the hook through its throat.

He felt his stomach heave and his hand steadied him against the wall.

"Raven?" he gasped, fighting the compulsion to vomit. He gasped for breath and pushed himself away from the wall, standing shakily. He saw his torch a foot before them, still lit.

His hand shook violently as he leaned down and grasped the stick again. He didn't want to see that horror again but he knew he needed to; he needed to know if they were his people. He needed to know if his failures had led them to this ghastly fate. He'd never forgive himself, but he needed to know.

He lifted the torch again, forcing every muscle to move, and stood tensed as the light fell on the bodies again. The light flickered but he held strong and even took a step forward.

It was just as horrific as it had appeared in that one glance. Many of them were certainly dead but he caught a weak movement from the end of the line. He held the torch up to look at the faces, the bodies that had them anyway.

He felt like fainting as he realised they were not his people. These people were muscular, the men had shaved heads, and tattoos and scars crossed their bodies. These were Grounders.

All except one. By the time he reached the end of the line, he had had the sickening realisation that he'd started at the oldest captures and ended at the freshest. The last two were still alive; he could just make out the rise and fall of chests. They didn't appear to be missing any limbs yet but their bodies were covered in dried blood and dirt.

He almost dropped the torch again when he reached the last body. He understood why Raven was the way she was.

"Finn," he breathed, barely daring to make a sound. He stared wide eyed and horrified at the boy he knew for a moment, and then jolted into action.

"Raven, help me!" he called over his shoulder as he leaped forward. Finn was alive, they had to get him down and get out of the cave before the creatures returned. He couldn't do it on his own. Already he was trying to hold the burning torch under his arm while he reached up for the crude vine ropes that strung them from the hooks.

"Raven, he's alive. Help me!" he repeated when she remained motionless. His fingers scrabbled at the tightly knotted ropes and his breathing quickened. He could feel time slipping away from them; how much had they already wasted in shock? If they didn't get out of there then he and Raven would be joining Finn and the Grounders on the wall.

He was beginning to panic, unable to even loosen the knots, when Raven appeared on Finn's other side. There were still tears pouring down her cheeks but her jaw was set and she pulled at the knots with fury. Bellamy withdrew and held the light up for her and within two minutes she had the knot loose.

"Catch him," she said shortly and Bellamy braced his weight around Finn's middle. Raven released the final loop and Finn's dead weight dropped down onto Bellamy. The air was pushed from his lungs but he kept them both up.

"Take the torch," he said, shoving the torch at Raven. "I'll carry him. We've got to get out of here. Go. I'll follow you."

The light flickered as she gripped the torch with shaking hands. She gazed at them as Bellamy manoeuvred Finn's weight over his shoulder and then she turned as fled. He followed the sound of her footsteps and the bobbing light. Briefly he thought of the Grounder they'd left behind who was still alive. They were dooming him to a horrific death, but Bellamy pushed the thought aside and concentrated on his feet pounding along behind Raven.

When they burst out into the clearing, the sun had almost vanished behind the horizon. The trees on either side faded into murky darkness. The Reapers campfire had burned down to coals.

Raven was waiting for him at the entrance, her head flicking around wildly at every noise.

"Come on!" she hissed at him as he emerged. He was too out of breath to snap back at her. Finn's weight wasn't a light one and Bellamy was running on adrenalin and fear alone.

Raven let him put one foot outside the tunnel entrance before she was off again.

He didn't think as they sprinted back to the hunting party. He could only keep his lungs working and his feet pounding and his eyes locked onto Raven's light. He had no idea how long it took them to reach the circle of lights that indicated their group.

When he burst through the undergrowth to the side of the lake he had to force himself to stop. He was exhausted and everything burned and ached but it was as if he was on autopilot.

"Let me see," someone said beside him and he realised he was surrounded by people. Someone pulled Finn's weight from his shoulder and he felt a momentary panic.

"Are you alright?" Raven asked, appearing right in front of him. Her hair was a wild mess around her face, strands stuck to the tears still drying on her cheeks. Her eyes look huge and empty in the dark. He couldn't answer her; his lungs were bursting for air but every inhale felt like a knife wound to his ribs.

"Get him water!" someone shouted and the next moment a cold and dripping canister was forced into his hands and to his lips. He gulped down the icy water and let it dribble down his chin and soak into his clothes.

"Better?" the same person asked as the canister tilted away and he nodded, still gasping for air.

"Thank you," he managed, wiping his sleeve across his mouth. He turned, looking for Finn and Raven. The Arkians had pulled Finn from him and lay him on a tarp nearby. Raven was at his side, one hand brushing across his hair, the other holding his in an iron grip. Bellamy slowly and painfully made his way over and crouched beside Raven.

She looked at him; she was crying again.

"They said he's probably hypothermic and dehydrated but nothing appears to be serious."

Bellamy looked at Finn, who looked like a corpse. He found it hard to believe that anyone could survive an encounter with the Reavers.

"They mustn't have held him very long," Raven murmured as if she'd read his mind. She gently stroked his hair and leaned down, giving him a soft kiss on the forehead. Bellamy watched silently. He didn't know what the nature of Finn and Raven's relationship was anymore, but no one could deny that Raven loved him with all her heart. She looked at him the same way Bellamy looked at Octavia; that they were the most important person in the universe and they would commit any crime and any act for them.

"We need to move back to Mecha," a man said behind Bellamy. "They could have followed you."

Bellamy felt the cooling sweat on his skin prickle with fear again. Watching Raven with Finn, for just a moment he'd forgotten what they'd been running from.

He eased to his feet, feeling his muscles already begin to cramp.

Someone handed him a thick coat and he slid into it. He hadn't realised he'd been shivering until he did. Four people picked up the corners of the tarp. Raven stayed where she was, refusing to let go of Finn's hand. Carefully, the group picked their way along the edge of the lake, back to the safety of Mecha Station.


	10. Chapter 10

"Shut up, all of you! He's been through hell, alright?"

Raven stood with her hands on her hips and her shoulders squared, glaring at the crowd outside the makeshift hospital room in Mecha Station. Bellamy was one of the crowd, trying to see passed Raven to where Abby was treating Finn.

Bellamy wasn't the only one with a hundred questions for Finn. Kane and a dozen other Arkians were crowded around, voicing every thought and concern they could muster.

"What if they come after us?"

"What do you think they did to him?"

"Are they really as horrifying as you said, Bellamy?"

"Shut up!" Raven hissed again. She glared at each one of the speakers individually until they dropped their gaze. Bellamy was the only one who didn't look away. He couldn't be frightened even by Raven's fierce protectiveness, not after seeing the horrors in the Reapers cave. He couldn't rid his mind of the image of the pale, twisted and mutilated bodies strung up.

"Raven, he's awake." Abby appeared in the doorway. Raven spun and almost fell in her hurry to get through the door. Abby's words set off a fresh round of questions from the waiting crowd and Bellamy took the opportunity to slip in behind Raven. Abby glanced at him but didn't stop him. He was grateful. They hadn't ever seen eye to eye and he resented Finn for a lot of things, but he was one of his people and the only other one he knew to be alive at the moment.

"It's okay," Raven was saying from where she had dropped to her knees beside Finn. Her hands hovered as if she was afraid to touch him. At last they settled on his shoulders. "You're with the Ark. Mecha Station is on the ground, Finn. You're home."

Bellamy came to stand behind her and looked over her shoulder. Finn looked pale and his forehead was beaded with sweat, but he didn't look nearly as bad as he could have considering where they'd found him.

What world have I found myself in, thought Bellamy, that a man with all his limbs and a beating heart is considered lucky?

He'd heard through the door as Abby diagnosed a severe case of hypothermia. The cave had been freezing and damp, and he'd been stripped of everything but his pants. He was dehydrated as well but Bellamy could see an already half empty hydration kit hooked into the crook of his arm.

Raven brushed his long hair back from his forehead. He seemed to be stunned, staring at the both of them as if he couldn't understand how they were there.

Bellamy swallowed nervously. He didn't know what to say.

"It's good to see you again," he said awkwardly. He thought Finn would undoubtedly have a snide comment to that, pointing out that Bellamy had never been happy to see Finn in his life. But Finn remained silent.

Raven glanced over her shoulder at Bellamy and he could see that she was more scared than she'd been when they pulled him out of the cave. She'd been relieved then, now she just looked uncertain.

"I thought I'd lost you," Raven murmured, her voice catching. Bellamy looked away, suddenly feeling as though he was intruding. He'd always felt awkward when he was an involuntary witness to these moments between Finn and Raven, mostly because he could always see that Raven's passion wasn't returned to the same strength by Finn.

"Did you find them?" Finn's voice was hoarse from disuse. His eyes flicked wildly from Raven to Bellamy. "Did you find Clarke and the others?"

Bellamy hesitated, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

"No," he said simply. "What happened? Last I saw, you were running into one of the tunnels before the explosion."

Finn's eyes glazed over as if he was recalling the explosion and everything that had happened around it. His head snapped up and he looked straight at Raven.

"You were shot."

Raven tried to reassure him with a gentle hand on his shoulder but his whole body was wired as if he was ready to fight. He visibly shivered at her touch and she withdrew her hand quickly, looking hurt.

"I'm fine. Abby, Clarke's mom, she fixed me." She swallowed and dropped her voice. "What happened, Finn?"

He looked at Bellamy and spoke almost as if he was apologising. "I tried to follow them. I tracked them all the way to the river but then the rain...and the Reapers came...and..."

He was shaking even harder. Bellamy was alarmed. Even when they'd been facing annihilation by the Grounder army, even when he'd been stabbed in the chest by Lincoln, even when he'd thought Clarke was dying, Finn hadn't been as affected as he was now.

Raven tried to calm him but he sat bolt upright. "We have to find them. Now. We have to go to the river. They were heading to Mt. Weather."

Bellamy was confused. He crouched down beside them. "What do you mean? Clarke was leading the group to Mt. Weather?" It didn't make any sense. There was no way Clarke would have just left Raven in the Drop Ship, nor would she have left without finding Finn. Bellamy pushed aside the thought that she wouldn't have bothered to look for him.

Finn shook his head wildly and his wet hair stuck to his face. "No. The men with the guns were taking them to Mt. Weather. I'm sure that's where they were going. They were heading straight for it."

"Was it the Grounders? They had guns?" Raven asked dubiously.

Finn was becoming more and more agitated with their lack of comprehension. But Bellamy was trying desperately to piece it together. Finn wasn't making any sense, but something was stirring in the back of him mind. A vague memory of Lincoln talking in a fearful tone about men who came with guns, about the Mountain Men. He hadn't thought of it when Raven described the men coming into the ship, but listening to Finn it was coming back to him.

"No! It wasn't the Grounders. I woke up after the explosion and these military people were everywhere. They took them all. They'd knocked them out with something and they tied them all up and took them. All of them! I followed them but they were quick and they covered their tracks..."

Finn looked close to tears. He was completely different to the level-headed, rational teenager that Bellamy was familiar with. He felt unsettled by the change and stood up, taking a step back.

"It's the people you saw, Raven," he said seriously. "We were wrong. They weren't Grounders with guns. There's another enemy altogether."

He turned away, clenching his jaw in frustration. As if they didn't already have enough enemies out there to fight. As if the weather and the land and the Grounders weren't doing a good enough job of killing them off.

"Well we have to go find them," Raven said, looking between the two men. She didn't sound as certain as when she'd been going after Finn. But Bellamy didn't blame her. At least when he'd thought it was the Grounders he was up against, his enemy had had a face. But these Mountain Men were a mystery. They could be doing anything to Clarke and the rest. He tasted bile in the back of his throat at the thought.

"I agree."

All of them looked to the new voice. Kane was standing in the doorway with Abby behind him. He looked grim and Bellamy suspected her had heard most of their conversation. He'd at least heard the news that there was yet another group out there, and one that had the 100.

"We have to go now," Finn said trying to push himself to his feet. Abby was at his side in an instant, pushing him back down with surprising strength.

"You're not going anywhere," she said firmly. "Not for a couple of days at least. You're nowhere near strong enough."

Finn protested but Abby had the same finality that Clarke did when it came to these matters. Raven looked over at Kane and Bellamy.

"We can go. Bellamy and I. We know how to get to Mt. Weather, at least in theory."

"You expect to rescue 100 teenagers on your own?" Kane replied.

"Fifty," Bellamy corrected quietly. Kane gave him a sympathetic look which he detested.

He squared his shoulders. "Raven's right. It makes sense for us to go. We can be there by tomorrow morning. At least we can figure out who these people are and what they want."

It was his responsibility to go. If they were dead, he had to be the one to bring that news back to their families. After all, he was the one responsible for whatever was happening to them. If he'd been a better leader none of them would have been in these situations; Raven wouldn't have been shot by Murphy, Finn wouldn't have been tortured by the Reapers for the last week, and Clarke wouldn't be missing.

Kane looked between Bellamy and Raven for a long time, his forehead creased in thought. Bellamy didn't really care if he gave them permission or not, because he didn't need it, but he was intrigued to see what the man would say. Finally he looked to Abby. This interested Bellamy. He hadn't though Councillor Kane would look to anyone for support, especially not someone like Abby Griffin, not if she was as outspoken and stubborn as her daughter.

After a pause, Abby gave a tense nod.

"You'll have to take weapons with you," Kane declared. "And supplies. If you wait a couple of hours we can prepare some packs."

He raised his eyebrows at Bellamy, an offering. Bellamy looked to Raven, who nodded.

"We'll leave in two hours," Bellamy said. He didn't think he could yet manage to thank a man who he'd spent most of his life hating, but he couldn't deny that Marcus Kane was a very different person on the ground. They all were, really. The ground had the power to change you completely. Bellamy just wasn't sure yet whether it had made him a better man or a monster.


	11. Chapter 11

It was mid afternoon when they finally set out. Bellamy's stomach twisted nervously as they walked out of the forming gate, Abby, Finn, Kane and a small crowd watching them go. They had food, water, some basic medicine and bandages from Abby, a handgun and spare ammunition each and a copy of Victoria's map. Not that they needed a map. Mt. Weather was visible from the edge of the lake - a stark, ugly looking cliff among the elegant snow capped mountains.

Raven glanced over her shoulder just before the station went out of sight, and Bellamy knew she was looking at Finn.

"He'll get better," Bellamy said, attempting comfort. He knew that the worried, distracted look in Raven's eyes was because of the strangeness of Finn's behaviour.

"Will he?" she murmured, facing forward.

Bellamy didn't reply. He'd never liked to make promises he couldn't keep, even if they were just throwaway comments.

"He's different," Raven said sadly. "Even before the Reapers. I think he's been fading day by day here and now, now I can't see a glimpse of him at all. The boy I knew on the Ark is gone."

"We're all different here," Bellamy replied, thinking of Octavia, standing wild and blood stained over the body of the slain Grounder, Lincoln's sword dripping blood down her arm. A month ago he'd never have believed that his little sister was capable of such brutality and bravery. Had she always been capable of it, somewhere inside of her, and the fight for survival had just brought it out on earth?

They walked in silence, Bellamy lost in thoughts of Octavia somewhere far behind him and Clarke somewhere hopefully ahead. He hoped they were both safe but hope hadn't served him well so far on the ground.

Raven was almost out of sight ahead. They had been careless and let themselves drift apart.

They were in the shadow of Mount Weather when it happened. The rising sun was hidden behind the domineering face of rock and Bellamy had to tread carefully in the deep shadows of the woods.

His head snapped up when an unusual noise caught his attention. He wasn't sure what it was, but something in his subconscious told him it wasn't natural. He opened his mouth to call for Raven when her voice came to him from ahead.

"Bellamy!" There was panic in her shout and it made his heart beat pick up in a second.

"Raven?" He took off, unheeding of the roots and vines that tried to trip him as he raced through the thick undergrowth. He stumbled and pushed himself up again, ignoring the mud coating his knees and hands.

"Raven!?" She wasn't replying and he was panicking.

He fell again, landing hard on a slab of concealed rock. The air was smacked from his lungs. Rolling onto his side, coughing, his vision began to turn red. He shook his head but it didn't clear. Something black moved among the swirling red and the swaying bushes. He tried to focus on the threat approaching him but he couldn't focus on anything. The red mist was closing in on him, filling his throat with a bitter, acidic taste that made him choke. He tried to get up but his limbs wouldn't cooperate.

As he thudded back to the ground, the last thing he saw was the black silhouette of a person standing over him.

His head pounded and when he opened his eyes, bright light stabbed into his skull. Squinting against the whiteness, he waited until his vision adjusted. He could tell in an instant that the light pouring onto his face wasn't natural. It was harsh and penetrating. His eyes flew fully open at the realisation and he tried to sit up.

Head swimming, he steadied himself, his hands meeting soft wool and cool cotton. He looked down and realised that he was in a bed; neat white sheets and a pearly woollen blanket.

"What the hell?" he muttered, shoving the coverings away. His filthy clothes were gone, instead he was in a pair of white cotton pants and shirt, like what they used for hospital patients on the Ark.

He looked around the room he was in, the leaden fear in his stomach growing. There were no windows, and one door with an obvious lock on it. Apart from the bed upon which he was sitting there was a small wooden table and a single chair. Everything in the room was white and shining with fluorescent light. His skin prickled with the feeling that he was being watched.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and timidly touched his bare feet to the tiles. They were freezing, but he slithered off the bed and strode over to the door.

Whatever it was that had knocked him out was receding from his system by the second. He could feel his coordination and strength returning with every breath.

The door had a circle of glass in it but there was nothing to be seen but a white corridor.

He turned back to the room. He was just about to go and inspect the table and chair when he heard the sound of heavy footsteps. He spun back to the door, staring out the window. For a moment he couldn't see anything but the stomping of feet grew louder, and then a group of people came into view. He took a step back from the door, his instincts telling him to be as far away from these people as possible. Four of them were dressed in skin-tight black military wear, their faces revealed but their heads covered with balaclavas. Two more – a man and a woman – were dressed in tailored dark suits, with white lab coats over the top. He'd never trusted doctors. They stopped outside his door before he got a chance to look at the rest of the group.

He balled his hands into fists at his side and eyed the door warily as one of the doctors tapped in a pin code. The door slid open with a noise than made him think of the Ark.

"Bellamy," the female doctor said. She actually smiled at him. All her teeth were perfectly square and very white.

"Who are you?" he demanded without giving himself a chance to feel the full force of his anxiety at the fact that they knew his name. "Where am I?"

"Dr. Pathan, Dr. Myers, this is the Mount Weather Containment Facility." It was the male doctor who spoke. He couldn't have been much older than Bellamy and he listed the answers to Bellamy's questions, identifying first the female doctor and then himself, without even meeting Bellamy's eyes.

Bellamy stared at him, too stunned to produce words. These people weren't like Grounders at all and whatever operation they were running was high-tech and sophisticated. The white room and the strange doctors and soldiers in front of him were like something from a hallucination. He was having trouble realising that this was real.

"Where's Raven?"

"She's fine," Dr Pathan said. She was much more personable that her colleague and quite pretty, with semi-dark skin and bountiful, shining black hair. She smiled at Bellamy again. "You'll be able to see her later. We're just making sure the injury site in her abdomen is healing correctly."

"She's already seen a doctor," Bellamy snapped back. He didn't realise until he'd said it how ridiculous it sounded, to be arguing with these strangers given the circumstances.

"If you'd follow us?" Dr Pathan continued, only blinking in response to Bellamy's aggressive tone.

Instinctively, Bellamy took a step back. "Where are you taking me?" Would they bother with the white room and the clean clothes if they were going to execute him? Or worse. He eyed the batons and the guns in the belts of the soldiers. They had kidnapped him from the jungle, they had probably taken the rest of the 100, they had Raven somewhere, and they had done nothing yet to imply they meant him any good. They filled the only doorway and he was hopelessly outnumbered but he'd still fight if he had to.

"You've passed all scans and tests," Dr Myers said listlessly, frowning at a clipboard in his hand.

"We thought you might like to see your friends again," Dr Pathan expanded, giving the man a glance of exasperation.

Bellamy glared at them but then her words clicked in his brain. His friends. They had the rest of the 100 and they were still alive. They had Clarke. A bubble of emotion rose up in him and his breath caught. If they were here and alive, it would mean he didn't have to add their lives to his already too long death toll. It would mean he wasn't responsible for the deaths of his people.

"Clarke?" he managed to gasp, directing his question to Dr Pathan.

She smiled again and nodded. He wasn't sure why but it irritated him that she smiled so much. It was almost as if she was trying too hard to befriend him. Dr Myers was definitely unlikeable, but at least Bellamy could trust his disinterest.

He stepped forward.

"Hands out," one of the soldiers said and pushed between the two young doctors. He held out a set of thin metal cuffs. Bellamy eyed them, his elation at the thought of seeing Clarke and the others flickering at the sight of more imprisonment.

"It's just a precaution," Dr Pathan said warmly. Bellamy met the eyes of the soldier who stared at him unwavering. He held out his hands and kept staring at the soldier while the cold metal slid onto his wrist.

Two soldiers kept step behind him, one held his arm and one walked in front of the two doctors as they made their way down a long white corridor lined with more doors with circle windows. He wondered if the rooms behind each were identical to his and what they could possibly be for.

There was no sound but the tapping of their footsteps on the tiles as they turned from corridor to corridor in a maze that he knew he could never find his way through even if he did manage to escape. Eventually they paused at a large metal door which Dr Myers opened with a card around his neck. One of the soldiers stepped forward and removed the handcuffs. Dr Pathan flashed Bellamy another broad smile and he looked away.

The door opened and he peered over the soldier to see. To his relief the space beyond wasn't white. They stepped through and he found himself in a large room, thick, dark grey carpet under his feet and heavy wooden panelling on the walls. It wasn't like any room he'd ever seen before. There were no windows but ornate lamps hung from the walls on every second panel and sat on spindly legged wooden tables. They filled the room with a soft, warm light that made him feel as comfortable as the fluorescent light had made him feel on edge.

But it wasn't just the light that flooded his system with relief. It was the fact that there were a dozen couches positioned around the room and on every one of those couches sat the girls and boys of the 100.


	12. Chapter 12

"Oh my God, Bellamy!"

He had a face full of wild, blond hair before he had fully processed everything. Arms were so tight around his neck he felt the pressure on his windpipe. He didn't move and eventually she pulled back and he could properly see that it was Clarke, eyes shining and smiling broadly.

He held her at arm's length, unable to think of what to say. She looked as fresh and healthy as the first day they'd landed on earth. There was no sign of fear or anger in her expression. There was no sign that they'd be subjected to cruelty during the weeks they'd been missing.

"Bellamy!" Jasper was at Clarke's shoulder and clapped a strong hand on Bellamy's shoulder. His grin, too, was as wide as when they'd first arrived. He laughed and called over his shoulder to the people behind him.

Bellamy struggled to speak. "I thought you were all dead," he managed eventually. His eyes ran over Clarke repeatedly and then on to Jasper and Miller and Hazel and the other dozens of faces crowding behind them. From all sides smiles and surprised laughter hit him.

Whatever he had expected to find, this was not it. His mind was slow to catch up to the fact that his people were not only alive, but looked happier and healthier than they had even on the Ark.

"No," Clarke replied, looking around at everyone. "Very much not dead. We thought you were though. And..." she trailed off and for the first time since he'd arrived, her eyes grew dark. She swallowed before meeting Bellamy's eyes again. "Finn? Raven?"

"Both alive," he said. "Raven came with me and Finn is at Mecha Station."

"Mecha?" Monty appeared from nowhere. Bellamy's eyes widened and Monty shrugged. "Yeah, I've been here a while," he said casually. "Does that mean that Mecha made it to the ground?"

Bellamy nodded and the room broke out into excited chatter. He heard exclamations of shock from several people and he knew how they felt.

"The Ark broke up on entry," he said, trying to speak above the noise. He was hit with a wave of nostalgia as the crowd fell silent as soon as he began to speak and all eyes turned to him. "Mecha Station landed not far from here. It's likely at least one other station survived too and they're searching for it."

"We're on the ground!" shouted someone and high fived their neighbour.

Clarke touched his arm and his attention was drawn instantly back to her. "Is my mom...?"

"She's alive," he said quickly, reprimanding himself for not telling her sooner. "And she'll be happy to know you are too."

Clarke bit her lip and he could see that the news brought up a turmoil of emotions for her. She stepped back, her mind elsewhere, and people pushed forward, filling the gap to talk to Bellamy. Questions were fired at him from all sides, people wanting to know if their friends or family were on Mecha, what they planned to do now, what had become of the Grounders.

It reminded Bellamy that he still had a hell of a lot of unanswered questions of his own. He turned back to the doorway and found that one soldier and Dr Myers had remained and had been standing there quietly during the reunion.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked the room in general, content to take an explanation from anyone.

Jasper and Monty exchanged serious looks and the chatter in the room died down again.

Clarke lifted her head at the tone of his voice. She looked nervous.

"I know it's a lot to take in..." she said carefully, clearly measuring her words. "Believe me, at the start I was completely overwhelmed. " She took a deep breath. "We're inside Mt. Weather. This is a military facility that was set up before the war and the destruction. They...research, I guess. There's a whole population here, just like on the Ark, and they monitor the outside world. They were monitoring us from the moment we arrived. But they only intervened when they thought the Grounders would wipe us out."

"Very well said, Ms. Griffin."

Bellamy spun around to find that they had been joined by an older woman with long, dead straight grey hair. She wore a neat suit of dark red and Bellamy sensed that she was a woman of power. He eyed her suspiciously as she approached them.

"My name is Commander Marjana Carras. I'm the leader of the Mount Weather Containment Facility. I apologise for the confusion that may have arisen around your arrival, but we have strict protocol that must be followed regarding outside arrivals."

Bellamy blinked at her, not fully understanding anything of what she said. She gave a small, thin lipped smile as if she understood his thoughts.

"Perhaps it would be easier for you to comprehend if your friends explained to you what it is we do here. They have been our guests for some time now and I believe they have established an understanding of our work." This statement was directed at Clarke who gave a small nod.

"I'll leave you to it then," Commander Marjana Carras said pleasantly. She turned and signalled to the soldier at the door who opened it. Dr Myers and the soldier both followed her out, leaving the remaining 100 alone for the first time.

Bellamy turned back to Clarke, shaking his head. His mind was a swirling mass of questions and he didn't even know where to begin.

"Sit down," Clarke suggested gently and led him to one of the couches.

"I'll explain everything."

He hadn't been far off when he thought there were similarities between these mountain people and the Arkians. As Clarke explained, the two societies, existing almost a 100 years without knowledge of the other, had the same goal; to repopulate the earth.

Except where the Ark had considered themselves the lone survivors of the apocalypse, the original mountain society had been a group of carefully selected citizens from across the globe. They had been locked in the Facility at the first signs of war and had survived the resulting destruction.

And then began their work. The Society, as they preferred to be called, had begun a century of testing, analysing and experimenting. Their mission was to discover when the earth was safe for rehabilitation and then, of course, to go out and recolonise the entire planet.

What the original designers of the society hadn't planned for though was the survival and mutation of people on the earth's surface. So the community, which had largely been populated by scientists and politicians, had to develop a new branch – an military. A hundred years later and they were an entirely militaristic society. It was necessary if they were to survive the violence that occurred on the outside. From time to time they would make the dangerous mission outside to gather subjects for testing. Usually these were Grounders but sometimes they found themselves on the wrong end of the Reapers. What happened to the test subjects exactly, Clarke did not know. All she did know was that they were being tested for the purity of their genes. And apparently the Society had thought the earth to be a long way off survivable by genetically pure.

And then the Hundred had arrived. Up until they landed no one on earth had known they existed above their heads, but the brains in the mountain quickly figured out what had happened. The decision was made to observe the new arrivals. It was quickly realised that they would be genetically pure, just like the Society, and so it was decided that they would be used as a control group to see how the radiation on earth affected them. The fact that they had been released from the quarantine ward and we able to interact with members of the Society meant that they had passed.

The flaw in the plan came when it appeared the Grounders had declared all out war on the Hundred. They made their moved – a little too late – to rescue their control group from 'certain annihalation'. When they arrived, they discovered the Grounder army had all been wiped out and there were around sixty or so teenagers and one Grounder struggling out of the ship.

For at least a week Clarke and the others were locked in the quarantine ward while every test and decontamination was run on them. And for the rest of the time they had been living a relatively easy life. They were not allowed to leave the mountain and couldn't have found their way to an exit even if they had been. They were given unused quarters, decent food and some entertainment.

"Didn't you wonder what had happened to us?" Bellamy asked when Clarke paused in her story. He's listened to the entire thing in a state of shock, but as he began to function again he couldn't help but be a little hurt that they'd sat around in comfy armchairs and played ping pong for two weeks.

Clarke looked horrified. "Every day!" she gasped and was backed up by exclamations from Jasper and some of the others.

"We've been wracking our brains trying to figure out a way to get out of here and search for you all. I've asked the soldiers every way I can think of to let us look for you but they won't let us leave yet."

Bellamy's expression remained neutral but internally he was smiling, pleased that he hadn't been so instantly forgotten by his people.

He cleared his throat. "Well, that might change when they learn of the Ark stations are on the ground. Mecha already has a settlement built and just before we left they sent another search party to the site of a possible landing. They've got a little more than sixty teenagers to contend with now."

He said it as if his sixty teenagers weren't much of a force but he couldn't help but look around the room of eager faces and feel proud of them. They may have been a rabble batch of delinquents but they had proved themselves in so many ways. And here they all were – alive, well, eager to start fighting again – which meant he had proved himself as well. He hadn't failed them as fatally as he thought he had. After so much despair, the joy he felt being surrounded by them all was giddying.

Bellamy rose to his feet again, feeling his muscles ache and protest leaving the comfortable chair. It had been such a long time since he'd experienced anything like comfort.

"I'm going to talk to them," he said loud enough to the whole group could hear him. He'd slipped back into being their leader like it was his second skin.

Clarke stood up too. "I'm coming too," she said and he was grateful for her support. It was just like old times, Bellamy and Clarke making the decisions. He'd hated it at the start when everywhere he turned she seemed to be there with an argument ready, but towards the end when the pressure had begun to get to him, he didn't think he could have done any of it without her.

"Tell them that we're bored!" Someone shouted from the back of the room and there was a giggle.

"Tell them that we're teenage delinquents and that boredom and us are not a good combination," Jasper added. He exchanged a cheeky smile with Monty and Bellamy suspected the two had already been up to mischief.


	13. Chapter 13

Clarke and Bellamy found a soldier stationed on the other side of the door.

"We want to speak to Commander Carras," Clarke said to him, sounding surprisingly authoritative. Bellamy regarded her with interest. He still felt as though he was in a dream, or possibly a nightmare depending on who these people were, but she seemed at ease in the clinical corridors.

The soldier nodded and led them through yet another maze of rooms, stairwells and corridors. Bellamy looked about him with more curiosity now that he knew he wasn't about to die. A lot of the places in the Facility felt as though they'd been half built. Pipes and wires ran the length of walls and disappeared into the floor. It was as if the insides of the buildings were on the outside. The doors seemed to be a combination of man power and electronic. Long, harsh tubes of light ran along the ceilings.

"How do you get your power?" Bellamy asked the soldier suddenly, looking up at the lights.

"Hydroelectricity," the soldier replied without looking back at them. "There's an underground river than runs through the mountain. Provides three times the energy we use in the Facility."

Bellamy mulled over the technology as they went the rest of the way.

After about fifteen minutes of walking they arrived at a large metal door with four soldiers stationed outside. Bellamy had the feeling that they were at the heart of the mountain, but there was no way of knowing that for sure. He wondered what it was like to live entirely beneath ground. At least on the Ark they'd had windows. He didn't think he could have lived without windows.

The soldiers exchanged words and then one of them keyed in a password and the doors swooshed open. Their guide gestured for them to walk on through. Clarke led the way and Bellamy had the feeling she had been there before, because she didn't look as stunned by the cavern they found themselves in as he felt.

They'd walked out onto a metal balcony and he felt his stomach drop away from him as he looked down and saw they were easily six stories from the ground. He looked up and saw that the enormous room stretched away further than he could see. Their balcony wove around the space in a hexagon, meeting with others and stairs that criss-crossed to other platforms and walkways through the entire cavern. In the centre of each level a platform sat, joined to the walls only by the walkways. On the platform at their level a bank of computers sat in the middle and men and women in white clothing sat in front of them at shiny chairs. Another group of people were crowded around a large table, pointing at the surface and discussing what they saw there. It was to this group that Clarke led him and as they approached he recognised the woman who had met them in the other room – Commander Carras.

He felt his skin prickle as they approached, not from fear but from a sense of familiarity. He glanced across at Clarke but she seemed perfectly at ease. He supposed she would be, with her mother being a Councillor and the Ark's leading physician and her father being a renowned scientist, she was probably used to people of authority. Bellamy, though, was not. And not only was he not used to them but he didn't trust them. It was this familiar sense of distrust and wariness that made his skin prickle. As he looked around at the computers and uniforms and the obvious hierarchy, he couldn't help but feel as though they'd landed on another Ark.

"I'm glad you sought me out," Commander Carras greeted them, her tone formal but friendly. Bellamy had the sense that she could turn her voice and her expression to suit whatever she wanted to obtain from people. "There is something I need to discuss with you."

She led them away from the central platform, along one of the metal walkways to an alcove in the rock wall that Bellamy hadn't seen before. The alcove was sealed with a panel of spotless glass that split down the middle and opened when she pressed a pin. The alcove was an office, Commander Carras' Bellamy guessed when she walked in confidently and took a seat behind an expansive metal desk. He and Clarke were left to figure out for themselves that they could take a seat in two chairs facing the desk. He pulled a chair out for Clarke and then took a seat himself, feeling too large and awkward in the sleek furniture. He rubbed his hands along his pants.

"Before you begin," Clarke said quickly to Carras, "there is something we need to tell you as well."

She glanced at Bellamy and he guessed that he had the responsibility of that. He took a deep breath.

"Our people have landed on the ground. There is at least one station on earth, possibly several more. The 100 are no longer the only people from space on earth, there are...adults now." He almost bit his tongue in distaste as he used the words adults, as if the 100 were any less remarkable and capable because of their age, but he knew that it would be an important distinction to someone like Carras and he'd force the word out if it meant security for his people.

She folded her hands on the desk top before her and smiled at him. He didn't feel inclined to return it.

"I'm well aware of the arrival of your people," she said. "We've already sent out scouting parties to all known landing sites. And you needn't worry," she said, her grey eyes penetrating Bellamy as if she had read his mind, "I do not consider there any reason they should be a threat, not when the 100, as you're calling yourselves, have proven themselves entirely reliable."

She leaned forward in her chair, her eyes still fixed on Bellamy. He began to wish she'd look away and he threw a desperate look at Clarke.

"You're clearly a very capable leader of your people, Mr. Blake." He knew she was only trying to stoke his ego but he still felt his spine straighten in response. "As are you, Ms. Griffin. That is why I'd like to discuss the future of our relations with the two of you."

Bellamy didn't say anything but eyed her cautiously. He was willing to listen to what she had to say but he already had a feeling that there was going to be something he didn't like. This entire system was too much like the one he'd run from for it to suit him or his people.

"We're listening," Clarke said slowly and he sensed the same level of cautiousness from her. He was pleased, because he wasn't sure he could go up against Clarke on something like this. He wasn't sure he wanted to. Now that his people were finally reunited he wasn't sure he could bear to see them split down the middle again.

"We had to bring in the 100," Carras began coolly, "for testing and decontamination before you could enter our facility. It was vital that we knew what effects the short term exposure of the current radiation levels on the surface had had on a genetically pure population."

Bellamy bristled at the reappearance of that term. He didn't know why it annoyed him because he knew who the genetically impure population were and he didn't much like them himself, but there was something about the clinical coldness of the term that irritated him. Perhaps, too, he imagined Octavia's reaction if Carras described Lincoln as genetically impure. She'd probably punch her in the face. It made his longing for his sister worsen so he pushed it from his mind and focused again on what Carras was saying.

"As far as we can tell," she was saying, "there have been no negative side effects of the exposure. It is, of course, impossible to tell so early if there will be any lasting effects. We do not consider levels safe enough to release our own population yet, as per our mandate, but we have a proposal which I think will suit both parties. Your people can remain on the surface to live as they wish and they will have our protection against the genetically impure population. The condition is that they subject themselves to regular testing and observation so that we can monitor the lasting effects of the current radiation levels. I am, in short, proposing an alliance."

She promptly ceased speaking, closed her mouth and sat back in her chair to regard the two teenagers. Bellamy felt stunned, as though he'd just been hit in the head. His brain was still trying to catch up to the convoluted, political speech that Carras had given them. He looked to Clarke to find she was already looking at him, looking equally surprised.

"I...I..." For once, Clarke seemed unsure of her words. Bellamy felt as though they were trying to communicate an entire, hurried conversation with their eyes alone. He could read the uncertainty in hers, but he also thought she looked a little relieved, as if she'd been given an answer to a problem she'd been struggling with for ages. Bellamy felt wary. His skin was prickling again but this time it was definitely with fear. He did not like the idea of being anyone's lab rat. He had a sudden flashback to the wristbands they'd worn when they landed on earth, the Ark's way of monitoring their vitals. He felt as though that would be nothing compared to the monitoring these people would do.

The silence stretched on and he couldn't think of what to say. He didn't want to agree to the idea but he didn't want to come across as hostile – he still didn't trust these people and how they would react when the 100 were no longer agreeable.

"...we'll need to discuss is," Clarke said eventually and he could have hugged her for her caution. A part of him was afraid that Clarke would easily fall back in to habits of the Ark and instinctively trust that the Mountain Men were sincere.

"Of course," Carras said smoothly. "And you won't need to decide alone. I have sent a team to retrieve some from the 'Ark' to join the discussion; they should be here by morning."

Bellamy looked down, trying to hide the anger that flashed in to his eyes. He sensed Clarke stiffen beside him. He guessed that she, too, was angered by the patronisation of Carras' words and actions. She'd treated them as equals and leaders but in the end she was just humouring them, pretending to offer them a choice and then going over their heads to the 'adults'. Bellamy wished he hadn't mentioned them at the start after all.

He stood, through with the conversation. He craved being back with his people where they spoke what they meant and understood each other. His brain ached from the subtlety and artifice of Carras and the other Mountain Men.

He didn't say anything more to her but turned and made for the glass door again. As he exited he heard Clarke rise too, say something to Carras – probably trying to make them seem less rude – and follow him. That was good because he had no clue how to get back to the lounge where he'd left the others and because even if he had, he didn't want to be facing this unknown without Clarke at his side.


	14. Chapter 14

The first thing that Bellamy noticed when he and Clare re-entered the room was the newcomer sitting on an arm of a sofa with Jasper's arm around her shoulders.

"Raven!" He strode across the room, his face splitting into a grin. He hadn't been worried as such, but he was definitely glad to see her back with the 100. She slipped out of Jasper's arm and a moment later they collided and he had her in a bear hug. He actually lifted her off her feet and she was breathless when he released her.

"Are you okay? What did they do?" He fired the questions at her.

She shrugged but he sensed that she wasn't comfortable. "I'm fine. Freaked out, but Jasper's explained who they are and everything but...it's weird."

He could not disagree with that. Clarke smacked into him as she rushed forward to give Raven a hug too. Bellamy cocked his head to the side as he studied the two girls. He hadn't realised they had become such close friends. In his mind they were still the two sides of a competition, but he was glad that they had been able to move past that. It would have been childish and stupid if they'd hated each other for Finn's screw up. That's how he saw it anyway.

Eventually Clarke released Raven and he thought he saw her actually swipe at her eyes. Come to think of it, everything they'd been through and he couldn't recall seeing Clarke ever cry.

"So what did you two discover?" Monty asked, jumping up to take Raven's place on the sofa arm. He bumped in to Jasper who nudged him playfully back. They dissolved into a brief tussle which sent Monty toppling backwards and straight into Cara's lap. He grinned sheepishly up at her.

Bellamy rolled his eyes at their childishness but he was still grinning as he and Clarke moved into a position so everyone could hear them. He still felt as though he was in a dream with all his people around him so happy and alive.

"Well, we have good news and bad news," Clarke said.

"What's new?" Miller said bitterly.

"The good news is that the Mou - the Society – want to work with us," Clarke said, the forced optimism in her voice painfully obvious. Bellamy wished she wasn't trying so hard to see the good in these people, but he couldn't say he blamed her after everything she'd been through. There was only so much a person could take and maybe Clarke was ready to believe that something in their lives could go well, that they could be looked after and would have the freedom to be teenagers again. He didn't want her spirit to break if – when, he suspected – her hope was crushed.

"The bad news," Bellamy cut across her, "is that freedom will come at a price."

Everyone was watching them. Some people looked worried, their eyes flicking nervously between Clarke and Bellamy. Others simply looked angry, jaded by too many similar catches already. It probably wasn't new to many of them that something as simple as freedom came with a heavy price.

"They have proposed that we live as we please on the surface on the condition that we subject ourselves to their testing," Bellamy said. He knew he was making his own view on the matter perfectly clear with his tone and his expression. Clarke did too because she frowned at him and eagerly cut in.

"They want what's best for us though," she said, her eyes earnest and only a little but desperate. "They have no reason to not be true to their word. It would be a situation that would benefit both sides. We would get what we want – protection from the Grounders, freedom to live on the surface just like we always wanted..."

"We fried the Grounders!" Miller shouted suddenly. Bellamy appreciated the pride in his voice. "We don't need the Mountain Men's protection! We can protect ourselves."

A murmur of agreement rose up from the group. Jasper was nodding determinedly and Bellamy wondered if he'd already forgotten the fear of being in the fox holes with ammunition running through their fingers and a Grounder army in the darkness.

"We didn't kill them all," Bellamy spoke up, surprising Clarke who had been about to interject. She turned to Bellamy incredulously. "There will be more Grounders out there. And we came too close to failure this time. Or have you already forgotten those of us who didn't survive the final battle? But there is a way we can live freely – both from these Mountain Men and from the Grounders! There are people to the east who are supposed to be peaceful. My sister has already gone to them. We can make a new life there. No more living in fear! And no more being a lab rat!"

His speech had people on their feet. Jasper and Miller were pumping the air. Others were shouting their support. One way or another almost everyone in that room had lived in the shadow of authority their entire lives. They craved freedom, not anarchy, but the ability to make their own choices and to live their own lives. All they needed was a chance.

"Bellamy, what are you doing?" Clarke hissed at him, suddenly an inch from him. He noticed that her eyes had flecks of hazel in the blue.

"I'm giving them a choice,"" he said. His blood was singing. Whenever he stood in front of the 100 and roused cheers and shouts from them, he felt like a different person to the meek janitor of the Ark. He felt like the person he was supposed to be.

"We can't make a decision like this on our own," Clarke said fiercely. He'd forgotten what it was like to have the intensity of her glare on him. "We're supposed to be waiting for the rest of the Ark."

"They can make whatever decision they want, Clarke," he said, equally fierce now that he had the drug of power in his system again. He wasn't angry at her but he wished she could see that the 100 could never exist as lab rats to be prodded and poked whenever, and that was only if these people were as good as their word. He still didn't trust them. "But we're no longer in the sky. I refuse to be a test subject and I'm not the only one. The Ark can decide to make an alliance if they want, but I'm not staying if they do. And they can't stop me."

"You don't know the Ocean People will accept us all," Raven said suddenly in the silence that followed. She was frowning in thought as if she was trying to weigh up both sides of the argument. A few other people fell silent from their chatter and stared at her. "Just because Lincoln took Octavia to them doesn't mean they'll accept a whole herd of us. Maybe this is our best choice. If we go back out there it's to an unknown. Perhaps a known world, even with flaws, is better than one where we all might die anyway."

Bellamy was shocked to hear her speak like that. Raven was one person he'd assumed would be on his side. She hated authority; he'd assumed she loathe the idea of the Mountain Men.

She looked up at him, almost seeming a bit apologetic. "You saw what they did to Finn," she said quietly. "How can we go out and face that again?"

Clarke's head shot up. "What happened to Finn? Who did what?"

Bellamy cursed Raven for dropping it on Clarke like that. He'd wanted to pull her aside and tell her about the Reapers later. All she'd needed to know for now was that Finn was fine and being looked after by Abby. But he wasn't going to get that chance now. He knew Clarke wouldn't rest until she knew that Finn was alright.

"He tried to follow you," Bellamy said through gritted teeth. "And he was captured by the Reapers. Raven and I found him a few days ago. He was hypothermic and dehydrated and had a few cuts and scrapes but he was fine. Your mom was looking after him."

"He's not fine," Raven said and he glared at her. Was she determined to contradict everything he said? It was almost like she'd taken on Clarke's role. But Raven was more intent on looking at Clarke. "He was really shaken up, Clarke. I've never seen him like that. It...it scared me. I didn't recognise him."

Bellamy felt a stab of guilt for his anger at Raven when he heard the way her voice caught. She cleared her throat as if she was trying to hold back tears and looked intently at her hands, which had been twisting together in her lap. Clarke looked distraught. She stared at Raven without seeing her for a few moments and Bellamy hovered. He wanted to offer something, a touch on the shoulder or a word, but he felt inadequate. It wasn't him she wanted anyway.

Suddenly she came back to life and she turned on him. "How can you ask them to go back out there?" she said, colour rising to her cheeks and her voice rising with it. Everyone in the room was silent now and staring at the two of them. Bellamy felt his own face heat up but he wasn't sure whether it was because they were watching or because Clarke was angry at him.

"Haven't we been through enough?" she said. "We're just kids, Bellamy, whatever you want them to think. We're not meant to be in charge. We're not meant to be facing the things we have. It's been awful and you want to drag them all out there to face it all again? You can go, if you want, but I'm waiting for the people from the Ark to get here and I'm waiting to see what they think. Because I'm done making the decisions. I'm done having to choose between life and death."


	15. Chapter 15

The accommodation for the group was several long dormitory style rooms. Bellamy guessed they had once been used by military personnel that had since been given real quarters in the expansive complex. The rooms were sparse; rows of thin metal bunks, metal trunks for storing clothing and such and a door connecting two dorms to a bathroom. Males and females were placed in separate dorms so he said goodbye to Clarke and Raven when they were told it was time for night time lockdown. He didn't know what that meant and he was surprised to be told it was night time already. He lost all concept of time in the windowless place. Lockdown, it seemed, was a curfew that applied to everyone, not just the 100. He wasn't sure he could see the security reasoning behind it, but he didn't raise it in front of the guards that escorted them to their rooms. Every new thing he learned about this Society only solidified his desire to leave.

Jasper and Monty claimed him for their dorm which he didn't mind. It was nice to see the two of them joking and teasing like they had in the first days on earth. He knew they weren't the same, and he could see the tension with which some of their jokes were made, but at least they were trying. Though by the looks they gave the guards Bellamy was sure they didn't like the facility any more than he did. They weren't two people designed for military rule.

Despite the exhaustion of the day, Bellamy could not sleep when the lights went out. He heard sighs and rustling throughout the dorm and guessed he wasn't the only one. Eventually he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He sat for a few minutes, contemplating the complete darkness of the room, before he heard another bed squeak and footsteps stumbling across the floor. Someone's tapped him with a hand as if feeling in the dark for where he was and then the bed sunk as they took a seat next to him.

"I hate this darkness," Jasper said quietly, conscious of the few that were able to sleep. "Even on the Ark it was never this dark. It's not normal."

Bellamy had to agree with him there. He was used to moonlight and starlight now, used to the softness and ghostliness of it.

"If you're leaving, I'm coming with you," Jasper said suddenly. Bellamy stiffened. He hadn't stopped thinking about what they'd learned from Commander Carras and what Clarke had said. He didn't want to split the 100 again but he didn't see how they could submit themselves to a life of testing and containment. Whatever Commander Carras had said, they would not have freedom.

"Me too," said another voice in the darkness. It took him a second to identify it as Monty. From somewhere above his head Miller murmured agreement too. Three or four other voices spoke up. Bellamy was glad of the darkness then because he felt a sudden rush of affection for them all. He didn't answer immediately, waiting until he was sure he could speak without revealing it in his voice.

He also had to decide on an answer. He was glad of their support but Clarke was right about a few things, they couldn't storm out of the facility and he wasn't sure how it would go down if he directly rejected Carras' offer. He still was one hundred percent sure it had been an offer at all. If his suspicions about these people were correct, it was more likely their only feasible option. It might mean that they'd have to pretend to abide and then leave once they were back at Mecha Station. He no longer wanted to fight a battle no matter the consequences. He had learned the hard way that there were more important things than his pride.

"We should wait until the Ark get here," he said eventually, measuring his words. He wasn't sure how many others were out there in the dark listening to him. "Clarke is right, we should see what they say. They may reject the idea anyway. If they don't, then we'll decide our next move."

According to the digital clocks everywhere, it was mid afternoon when the party from the Ark were released from quarantine. According to one talkative scientist, it took them less and less time to decontaminate arrivals each time, not that they knew what to look for. Bellamy and Clarke were anxious, they still didn't know if the Arkians had been taken by force or if the Mountain Men had somehow convinced them to join. He could imagine the facility would be a shock to Kane.

The visitors though, weren't who he was expecting. Kane wasn't even among them. Five people were admitted to the same elegant room that Bellamy had first found himself in.

They stared at the gathered teenagers in shock for a few minutes and then clusters of movement burst. Raven was the first one to move; she hurried to Finn who looked close to hysteria. Bellamy was surprised to see him there, considering his visible fear, but he wondered if he had forced himself to come because of Clarke. Judging by the way his whole body was shaking, Bellamy thought it had been a mistake for him to come.

One of the younger girls, Jain, ran at a man who Bellamy only vaguely recognised. He lifted her off her feet in a hug and she burst in to tears, burying her head in his shoulder. The rest of the 100 looked on with mixed emotions on their faces. Many of them would never have the chance to hug their parents again, other wouldn't even want to.

Bellamy quickly turned his attention from these moments though, drawn to where Clarke was staring apprehensively at Abby. He had had no doubt that Abby would be coming. She would have dug through the mountain with her bare hands if it meant getting to Clarke again. He felt bad then, when he saw that the friction between the two of them had not erased. He knew why Clarke had hated her mother and he knew some of her feelings had changed, but he supposed it was not something easy to overcome.

Abby made the first move, stepping towards Clarke as if she were a wild animal. Clarke didn't say anything as Abby walked up to her and slowly embraced her, but he guessed it was a good sign that she allowed it. Her face was twisted and he couldn't tell what emotion she was trying to control – pain or love. Eventually Clarke's arms lifted slowly and hugged her mother back. Bellamy turned away, feeling as though he was intruding on an important moment. There was a lump in the back of his throat. Watching Jain and Clarke reunited with their parents didn't make him long for his own, but it did cause a crack in the wall he'd put up to prevent worrying about Octavia every second of every day. He'd do anything to see her again, even to just know she was alright.

For a moment, lulled by longing, he toyed with the idea of asking Commander Carras if they could locate her. He dismissed the idea pretty quickly though. There was no way of knowing that alerting them to her location wouldn't put her in grave danger. He didn't trust these people with his own life; he sure as hell wasn't going to trust them with Octavia's.

Bellamy had walked to the other side of the room, away from the group of Arkians that were quickly blending into the 100. When he turned back to them he saw that Clarke had wrapped herself around Finn. She looked as though she never wanted to let go of him again. Bellamy's chest contracted and he focused instead on the other adults. The other woman was Victoria, the woman who had found their location, and the other man Bellamy remembered had introduced himself as Wick.

He found it odd that Kane hadn't come himself. As if she'd read his mind, Abby approached him.

"Kane thought it best that he stay with the Arkians," she said, glancing over her shoulder to where Clarke was trying to talk quietly to Finn. Raven was hovering near them, torn between appearing concerned and appearing awkward. "He asked me to represent his views here."

Bellamy studied her for a moment. He'd underestimated how much Kane trusted Abby, and perhaps the depth of their relationship. He'd thought it was only a spark he sensed between them, but for Kane to hand her his power was significant. Bellamy felt he understood just how hard that would be for a man such as Kane. He wondered if Abby realised just how significant it was.

His gaze drifted back to where Clarke was now talking with Raven, still holding on to Finn though. It struck him all of a sudden that it was not such a different situation to he and Clarke. He'd given up power to Clarke on more than one occasion. Sometimes it had been the most difficult thing he'd ever had to do, but it had come down to the fact that he trusted her. And that he wanted her to know it.

Perhaps not realising these things was hereditary for the Clarke women.

"Did they abduct you?" he asked, drawing himself away from his thoughts. He was deeply curious to know how the Mountain Men had approached the Arkians. He sensed they wouldn't want to appear hostile and abduction tended to put people on edge.

Abby shook her head. "They approached. Under a white flag."

Bellamy snorted. It didn't surprise him that they had a flair for old fashioned tactics. The symbolism of a white flag was something that only existed in the history books.

"How glad you must be to be reunited."

Everyone fell silent as Commander Carras stepped in to the room, flanked on either side by a man and a women also dressed impeccably. She smiled at them all but the smile didn't reach her eyes, as if it was merely a formality.

"I trust that the younger of you have been considering our proposal," she said pleasantly and focused her attention on Abby, Victoria, Wick and Jain's father. "But I'm sure the adults are eager to learn of it as well."

She went on to repeat what she had told Clarke and Bellamy in her office. It was almost word for word, which Bellamy found interesting. Everyone listened intently; even though the 100 knew of the content, they had not heard the speech for themselves. He studied their faces as she spoke, and was pleased to see a fair amount of scepticism. Not everyone looked dubious though. Finn seemed entranced by the calmness and authority she exuded. Abby was listening with a frown but she didn't look dismissive. A few of the 100 seemed open to the idea but he knew it would come down to what he and Clarke chose. Everyone in their group would follow either her or him.

Bellamy kept his expression neutral and said nothing. He had already well and truly made up his mind and even if he was alone – which he doubted – he would be leaving this place.


	16. Chapter 16

When Commander Carras and her lackeys left them alone, discussion broke out immediately. Everyone had a question. Bellamy felt a swell of pride when the 100 turned mostly to him or Clarke, almost ignoring the presence of the adults. Clarke took charge of the situation and Bellamy let her. He didn't see any point in speaking up. Everyone already knew his opinion and those that wanted to join him could. He could still see though that Clarke was anxious and eager for everyone to stay together.

Once Clarke had spoken her piece to the waiting crowd, much the same as she'd said when they'd heard it for the first time, Abby spoke up. Bellamy sat back and mused on the striking similarities, both physical and not, between mother and daughter. Everything he admired about Clarke, Abby seemed to possess as well. With every day that passed in her presence he could see why a man such as Kane would place his faith and confidence in Abby, not just as a doctor and leader, but as a friend.

"Since it landed on earth, Mecha Station has been operating as a democracy," Abby said loudly enough so that everyone could hear but somehow not raising her voice. "Mistakes were made on the Ark and it is up to us to not repeat them on earth. If we want a new and better society, then we have to form it ourselves. That is why every person here will have the opportunity to cast their vote on this matter. The majority will decide our course of action."

Bellamy straightened, surprised. He had expected the decision to be made by the adults, or at least to include Mecha Station. But Kane and Abby and the others were essentially placing the future of all Arkians in the hands of the 100, a self-confessed group of delinquents who had been essentially exiled from the community.

"Why let us decide?" he said loudly.

Abby turned her gaze to him, calm and open; not what he was used to when he questioned authority.

"It was discussed on Mecha Station, and decided unanimously, that the 100 have the best judgement for any matter that involves earth. You have all spent time here and you know the dangers and benefits of the land. We know nothing of living in the wilderness nor of the real dangers in the woods. Our fate is much better decided with your knowledge than our ignorance."

"And what happens if we refuse to live by the decision?" Bellamy asked. He was in favour of a system where the people could decide how they lived, but even if everyone voted in favour of accepting Carras' proposal, he wasn't going to stay. He knew that he couldn't only like democracy when it went in his favour, but this was an issue he was not willing to relent on for his morals.

Abby held her calm gaze on him and he felt a flicker of guilt over his rebellion.

"That will be your decision," she said. "We cannot stop people if they wish to leave."

The room rustled with curious murmurs. He watched the information pass from person to person.

"When will we vote?" Monty asked, raising his hand as if he was still in class. Jasper saw it with a horrified expression and slapped his hand down.

Abby glanced at Victoria for confirmation. "Today?" Victoria proposed. "There seems no point to wait."

"We'll vote in four hours, at sunset," Abby said. "Everyone please think seriously about this issue. Your vote could mean the difference between two very different futures."

Bellamy retreated to a corner of the room as everyone broke into groups to discuss. He was joined by Jasper, Monty, Miller and a few others who firmly stated they were still with him. Clarke led Finn over, leading him by the hand, and Raven followed a few paces behind. He noticed the darkness of her expression and couldn't tell whether it was because of the vote or because of Finn and Clarke.

"I wish you'd reconsider, Bellamy," Clarke said as soon as she arrived. She looked worried, her eyes too big in her face.

Bellamy held her gaze. "I wish you would too, Clarke."

He wondered if he was the only one who felt as though the moment stretched endlessly as they looked seriously at each other. He hoped that what he was feeling wasn't evident to the rest of the group. Raven cleared her throat.

"Why don't we stay here completely?" Finn asked, breaking the silence. Bellamy's eyes snapped to him. He was still remarkably pale and there was a lifelessness about his eyes that was unnerving.

"What do you mean?" Raven asked, her voice sounding like she was speaking to her small child.

Finn looked nervous to have everyone's attention focused at him but he looked at the ground and forced himself to speak. "I mean, these people have weapons and technology. We could stay here, in the mountain. It'd be safer than outside with only a wooden fence between us and..."

Bellamy was shocked. He knew that Finn's experience had had a deep impact on him, but it was if he was a whole new person talking. The old Finn, the one who had driven him insane with his compassion for the Grounders and his fruitless plans for peace, would never have wanted to hide away in fear. The fact that they had strength and weapons would never have been an appealing characteristic about the Mountain Men to the old Finn.

He wasn't the only one who was shocked. Clarke and Raven exchanged a dark look. Raven blinked and he wanted to comfort her; he knew how upset she was by the changes in Finn. She turned away and Clarke took the responsibility of replying.

"That's not an option, is it?" she said, frowning as she formed the words. "They're not our people. We've fought so hard for our freedom..."

"They're like robots," Jasper cut in enthusiastically. "That Commander woman, sheez, I'm not sure she's even human."

Finn was silent for a while. His hair had grown too long again and it hung down in front of his face, but Bellamy didn't need to read his expression to know that he was in a dark place.

Clarke dropped her head near his but Bellamy could still hear what she said.

"Finn, I know you've been through something awful, but it will get better. You're afraid, I know, but don't let fear make this decision for you."

Everyone jumped as Finn suddenly pushed Clarke away. Perhaps he did it harder than he intended because she stumbled backwards and Bellamy caught her, steadying her back on her feet. He glared at Finn.

"Watch it!" he snapped. He didn't care if the guy was traumatised, that was no excuse for acting violently to Clarke when she was only trying to help him. Finn, remarkably, didn't look apologetic. His expression was dark.

"I don't need your patronisation!" he hissed at Clarke. Bellamy's hands were still resting on her shoulders so he felt her whole body tremble. His grip tightened protectively.

She started to say something but Finn growled with frustration and stormed away. They all watched as he marched across to the other side of the room and flung himself into a couch. Several people nearby looked at him apprehensively but no one went near him.

Raven had turned back at the sound of their raised voices and when Bellamy looked at her he saw that silent tears were tracking down her cheeks. He lifted his hands from Clarke's shoulders, realising he'd probably left them there too long, and moved to Raven instead. He stood between her and the room so that she could have some privacy and pulled her to his chest.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, even though he wasn't sure what he was apologising for. He didn't like to see her upset; there was something deeply wrong about someone as tough and brave as Raven being upset. She sniffed a few times and furiously scrubbed at her eyes until there was no evidence that she'd been crying.

"I need to go for a walk," she said quietly and slipped from his arms, but not before she had given him an appreciative tap on the chest. He turned back to Clarke and the others as Raven disappeared from the room. Clarke looked equally upset but he wasn't sure how she'd react if he walked over and gave her a hug too. Monty stepped in, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder.

"This place changes people," Jasper muttered, looking over at Finn. Bellamy agreed but he wasn't sure whether he was talking about the Facility or the earth in general.

He had nowhere to go but Bellamy found himself wandering the corridors in the hours before the vote. When he'd seen him leaving the room, Jasper has whispered that he should be persuading people to leave, but Bellamy knew that this was not something he could talk people into. They had to make the decision for themselves. Jasper had seemed surprised when he'd said that. It made Bellamy wonder if he'd changed that much since those early days on earth. He knew now that he'd made mistakes, but had he really been that head strong, manipulative a leader?

He was lost. Judging by the last digital time banner he'd seen, it was about an hour until the vote, and he had no idea where in the Facility he was. He had gone down two flights of stairs but not been able to find his way back to them and it had been some time since he'd seen another person, which was odd. Then again, at every intersection there was a little blinking red light high up so he supposed they at least knew where he was, even if he didn't. He guessed that if he was wandering towards somewhere he shouldn't, he'd quickly find company.

That was what he thought had happened when he heard voices up ahead. He stopped walking, letting the sound of his footsteps cease to echo in the concrete tunnel. The voices were soft, around the next corner he guessed. They were female and they didn't sound threatening. In fact...

He poked his head around the corner and sure enough, there was a familiar head of dark hair. Raven was sitting against a wall with her knees pulled up to her chest. He thought at first she was crying because she was bent forwards, but then she flicked her hair behind her shoulder and he saw that balanced on her knees was a circuit board. She was frowning at it, twisting something delicately with her fingertips. He moved forward, about to call out, when another person came into view.

A Mountain girl was sitting in the corridor opposite Raven, cross-legged, a bundle of thick wires curled around her legs and a tool in her hands. He knew she was a Mountain girl because she was completely unfamiliar to him and he knew all his people. She was wearing tight black leggings and a dark green tunic and her skin was remarkably pale. He supposed that was a down side of living underground for your entire life. He wondered if they had Vitamin D beds like the Ark did. Her hair was pale too – long, straight and pulled into a simple, high ponytail like Raven's, but almost completely devoid of colour.

His stomach did a quick succession of flips. His first instinct was anger at the sight of one of them and his second was fear, at seeing it with Raven. Reason took a few pounding heartbeats to come in, but then he faltered. Raven wasn't afraid. She was sitting perfectly calmly with one of the Mountain people. Then he felt confusion and the beginnings of anxiety.

He stepped out into the corridor and both girl's heads shot up, alarmed. Raven relaxed as soon as she saw Bellamy but the Mountain girl remained tense, eying him cautiously. Her eyes flickered from his hair to his shoes.

"Bellamy!" Raven lay the board on the ground beside her and sprang to her feet. "What are you doing down here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," he replied evenly, though is heart was tapdancing. He was still studying the Mountain Girl, eyes narrowed. To her credit, she didn't remind him at all of Commander Carras or the smiling doctor or the cold-eyed soldiers he'd seen, but she was still not one of his people.

"I'm um...exploring," Raven attempted. She smiled sheepishly, something Bellamy would not have thought Raven could do. He didn't think she was capable of feeling bashful.

"I went for a walk after...with Finn," she said and he heard that her voice was still raw. "And Coralie was here fixing a door lock."

It wasn't much of an explanation but considering it was Raven and she'd had the option of meddling with something mechanical, it was sufficient. Bellamy's shoulders relaxed slightly and he moved closer towards the two girls, though he was still wary of the Mountain girl.

The girl hadn't even blinked under his scrutiny. She studied him back with washed-out-blue eyes.

"You're a mechanic?" he asked, his voice sounding forced even in his own ears. The girl let the bundle of wires slither to the ground and tucked the tool she'd held into a clip on her belt. He saw that there were several other tools lined up there.

"Electrical engineer," she stated, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

He looked to Raven. "You okay?"

She shrugged and nodded. "Yeah."

He stared at her a moment longer, trying to read her, but she wasn't making anything visible. She shook her head suddenly, as if shaking off a thought.

"Coralie has been explaining the Society to me," she said, her voice completely different. "They have all kinds of engineers, just like we did. And they have hydroponicists and factories and farms as well. And some things we didn't like geneticists and immunologists and zoologists. They actually study the animals on earth."

Bellamy glanced at Coralie who had made a small noise, like she was clearing her throat.

"How's any of this important?" Bellamy asked but it came out harsher than he'd intended. Raven crossed her arms defensively.

"All I'm saying it, perhaps it's not so different to the Ark."

His skin flushed hot. It was worse than hearing Clarke say it. He'd never thought Raven wouldn't be on his side. Their weeks together had made him realise how similar they were.

"You left the Ark, remember," he pointed out quietly, even though he felt like bellowing with anger.

Raven sighed. "I know. But they have more knowledge here than we did. They have better technology and better defences."

"What? So you want to join them now too? Just like Finn?" His voice was rising.

Raven snapped at him. "Don't be stupid. And stop reacting like I'm betraying you. All I'm saying is...we're out of our element on earth. This isn't our home, Bellamy – not the Ark's home. Do you want everyone on the Ark to suffer like we did? To go through the battles we did? To have as many die? Perhaps they'd benefit from what the Mountain Men can offer. Medicine, protection, technology..."

Bellamy turned away. He didn't want to hear anymore, not matter how reasonable Raven's tone was and sensible her argument sounded. Despite what she'd said, he couldn't help but feel betrayed. He didn't blame her but it hurt. He thought she'd be at his side, facing a new, unknown world together. He hadn't even contemplated that she'd agree with Clarke.

"Will you stay with the Ark?" he asked, his back still turned because he didn't want to see the pain in his expression.

There was a long silence that almost made him turn around. Eventually Raven spoke. "I don't know."

That was enough. He strode away. He'd forgotten that he was lost and he had nowhere to go. He didn't want to think about the fact that he might lose both Clarke and Raven. Octavia was somewhere far away where he couldn't help her and now he was going to lose the only two other people that meant anything to him. It hurt. It hurt like hell.


	17. Chapter 17

Bellamy said nothing during the vote. Abby ran it and Clarke was hovering at her elbow, though she did not speak to her mother Bellamy noticed. Jasper and Monty stood at his side and Miller was on a couch nearby, showing their support as best they could. Even though Bellamy had made sure his plan to leave wasn't part of the vote – the Mountain Men definitely wouldn't have liked that – it was clear that everyone considered it a choice between Clarke, staying, and Bellamy, leaving. He received dozens of anxious glances during the vote.

They raised hands to indicate for and against and Bellamy didn't need to see who was against to know what the result was. There was an overwhelming majority in favour of allying with the Mountain Men, and he knew, staying with the Ark. A few people looked at him guiltily and he saw Clarke throw him a desperate, almost pleading, look when he didn't raise his hand in favour. Raven voted with Clarke. Jasper, Monty, Miller, Rosalia, Hazel, Brenner, Jones, Harper and seven others voted against.

"How long will it take to walk to the Ocean?" Harper asked nervously when the vote was over.

"I don't know," Bellamy admitted. He hadn't been able to sneak a long enough study of Victoria's map to figure it out. All he knew was that if they followed the river flowing east out of Lake Jameson they should head directly for the water.

"What will we do for food?"

Bellamy studied the group and realised that most of them were looking plumper than he'd ever seen them. They were still thin, bones angular and visible, but a lot of them had become frighteningly skinny during their time on earth, and food had always been carefully rationed on the Ark. They had been living in unprecedented comfort in Mount Weather. He hoped it wouldn't take them long to recall the skills that had helped them survive on earth.

"The same as before," Jasper said before Bellamy could speak. "We can hunt and we know some of the plants we can eat. We managed to survive when the Grounders were trying to wipe us out, walking to the Ocean should be a piece of pie!"

Bellamy appreciated Jasper attempt at optimism even if he knew none of them believed it would be that easy. It was a risk – they didn't know what lay out there – but he firmly believed it was a risk worth taking and obviously so did the rest of them.

"We will return to the Ark with everyone else," he said. "Once there we will gather what basics we can – some food, weapons of course, blankets, warmer clothing, basic medicine if we can get it. The Ark are well supplied, they planned for this and divided all supplies among the stations. We will be leaving with ten times what we were dropped down here with."

"Then we should slip out in small groups, so that it's not too obvious. And as soon as possible, before these Mountain Men have had a chance to set up even more surveillance and lord knows what else. We should meet up where the eastern river runs into the lake, everyone should be able to find it by following the lake shore east."

They fell into silence as everyone contemplated their mission. There were more than a few glum looks among them there was also determination and strength burning in every single one of them.

The 100 were to return to the surface in two days time. They would be escorted to Mecha Station by the Mountain Men. Bellamy was dismayed to see that they broke into two groups after the vote; those who had voted with Clarke and those who had voted with Bellamy. It wasn't hostile but perhaps people were too aware that they'd be parted soon enough, because the silences were tense and the looks furtive.

The only one who wasn't furtive was Clarke.

Bellamy hated the divide between his people and he couldn't stand to see them watching the others with a mixture of longing and regret, so he had left. He needed time to think, to sort out the mess in his head. He'd slipped so easily back into his leadership role but already he could feel the pressure in his skull building. He was flush with confidence one minute and the next he saw the bodies of his friends falling as the Grounder army bore down on him and he doubted every decision he'd made. He didn't doubt the decision he was making for himself but every person who had stood by him felt like an extra weight on his shoulders. He was painfully aware that once they left the Ark, their lives were his responsibility, not because they couldn't protect themselves but because they had chosen to follow him.

He had found his dorm room empty and had sat on one of the top bunks, leaning against the concrete wall and feeling the relentless coldness seep through the fabric of his shirt. That was where Clarke had sought him out. He hadn't heard her enter the room until he saw her head appear at the other end of his bunk, rising over the railing. She folded herself neatly onto the other end of the bed, sitting facing him expectantly. He didn't know what she was expecting, but she waited for him to speak.

"You can't change my mind," he said at last, feeling her eyes boring into him. He leaned his elbow on his knee and dropped his chin into his hand.

"I know," Clarke replied and her voice was miserable. She sighed with resignation. "I wish I could but I know I'd be wasting my breath."

"There was a time you would have been thrilled to see the back of me," he remarked dryly but there was no venom to his words. He didn't have any anger towards Clarke anymore, not like he had in the first days. He had hated her then more than he had hated nearly anything in his life. She had embodied everything he hated about the Ark – privilege, inequality, authority. He wasn't sure at what point exactly it had changed. He knew that Atom's death had been a big moment. He hadn't believed she really knew the sacrifices she was talking about until then. He'd thought she was just a pretty little princess trying to play grownup like her mommy. He hadn't realised she was prepared to take a life. He hadn't realised she was capable of such compassion and selflessness.

"Things change," Clarke replied, studying her hands. "You've changed."

Bellamy didn't reply because he didn't know how to. He had the burning desire to know whether she thought those changes were for the better or the worse. Clearly for the worst, if they were on the verge of parting ways to permanently.

"The truth is, Bellamy," Clarke said, lifting her head suddenly and looking directly at him. "I don't know if I can do this without you." She took a deep breath. "I don't know if I want to do it without you."

His breath was caught in his chest. There was a tightening sensation before he remembered how to exhale. Clarke's eyes were holding his and he couldn't break the gaze. A voice in the back of his head was urging him not to read too much into her words, but his heart was oblivious. It had picked up a frantic thumping.

Clarke smiled sadly. "You're the only one who understand what it's like," she murmured.

She was right, of course. Leadership was a burden and he knew that, despite their differences, it was what had brought him and Clarke closer throughout their time on earth. She had voiced the uncertainty that had been plaguing him. Once he left and they were out there in the woods again, he wouldn't have Clarke to turn to and confer with. He wouldn't have anyone to share the responsibility with and he was afraid that the pressure of their lives would crush him without her strength to help him.

He forced himself to look away, worried that he would reveal all those fears in his expression. He may be prepared to admit more to Clarke than most, but he still had his limits.

"You've got Finn," he pointed out, hating the poisonous words as they passed his lips.

He heard Clarke's sharp inhale of breath and thought he sensed pain. He felt even worse.

There was a long silence during which he distinctly heard Clarke's battle with her emotions. He could hear it in every breath and catch in her throat and knew she was fighting down tears.

"No, I don't," she said at last and the misery in her voice made his stomach hurt. "Finn never understood the decisions we had to make. He wanted to make everyone happy but that's not what leadership is about. He didn't understand sacrifice."

"He seemed to sacrifice a lot searching for you." Bellamy wasn't sure why he was defending Finn but he had the urge to ease the ache in Clarke's voice. Subconsciously he wanted to make her feel better even if it made him feel worse.

Clarke shook her head. "And he hates me for it."

Bellamy didn't say anything. He didn't want to lie to her. And he had a feeling that she was right. Finn was afraid and he was angry and already Bellamy had seen him direct that anger at Clarke, the person who least deserved it. It could just have been the reaction of a traumatised person, but Bellamy didn't think so. He had come to the same conclusion that Clarke had.

Finn was never going to be the same again. He had resented Bellamy and Clarke decisions they had made in the past and somewhere in his mind, their decision to stay and fight was what had led him to be in that cave. It may not have been logical and it definitely wasn't fair but Bellamy had enough experience with trauma now to know that it was rarely either of those things.

He looked at Clarke, her profile clear against the ceiling lights behind. Her hair was smoother than he remembered it being. He hadn't really noticed that kind of thing when they first landed. He didn't want to hurt her more than she was already hurting. Every instinct was to reach across the space and touch her, pull her closer, comfort her.

He stayed where he was.

He wanted to protect and comfort Clarke, but he wanted to protect his people more. And even if he was afraid of the unknown, he knew that staying in the shadow of the Mountain Men was a bad decision.

"I want to convince you to come with me," he said softly.

She smiled and tilted her head as she looked at him. He smiled slightly too, though neither of them held joy. They both knew it was as pointless as her trying to convince him. They were both strong. They were both leaders. And they were both stubborn.

They were so perfect for each other, really, that it was driving them far, far apart.


	18. Chapter 18

The morning of departure, the atmosphere amongst the 100 was reserved. Bellamy felt ill. His stomach was doing continuous flips. He was relieved to finally be leaving the oppressive claustrophobia of Mount Weather, nervous about their plan and loathing the idea of separating from Clarke and Raven and so many of the others.

It was just like it used to be with Octavia. He couldn't grasp that they could make their own decisions and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. It made him feel powerless which was not something he tolerated well, particularly when it concerned people he loved.

"Bellamy?"

Torn from his thoughts, he turned, surprised at the silverly voice that spoke his name with an unfamiliar intonation.

The pale faced Mountain girl greeted him. Her hair was loose this time, framing her face perfectly. She wasn't pretty, not compared to the girls that Bellamy was used to, but there was certainly something about her that made his eyes linger.

"What?" He hadn't cared about seeming rude but he was surprised at a light jab of guilt when the girl's gaze fluttered to the ground. She seemed nervous, which surprised him considering she was the one at home and he was the one among strangers.

"Cora?" Raven was moving through people from his right. She had spotted the fair head of the Mountain girl through the crowd. Bellamy had forgotten that he knew her name. Cora, short for Coralie.

Raven bumped into Bellamy as she arrived. She was frowning at Cora and with a start he realised she looked concerned. He studied Raven a second longer, wondering just how much time she had spent with the Mountain girl. She'd claimed she'd just stumbled across her in the corridor that day, but the way she'd just positioned her body leaning towards Cora and with a shoulder between Bellamy and the other girl, it made him wonder.

"There is something I think you should know," Cora said, speaking to Raven but her eyes fluttering to Bellamy once. Again, Bellamy noted the flowing way she spoke. She seemed to drop the harsh consonants from the end of words and as a result the entire sentence flowed in to one languid sound. Despite that, he didn't have trouble understanding her.

He pulled himself away from the study of her voice and focused on what she had said. It did not make the churning in his stomach lessen. Her pale, slim eyes were serious and seemed to be compelling Raven silently.

"What's wrong?" Raven's voice betrayed her fear.

Cora looked at Bellamy. "First, I need you to promise me something."

Bellamy narrowed his eyes on her. There was no way in Hell he was going to promise a Mountain girl anything. He crossed his arms over his chest.

"I don't operate that way," he said coldly.

Cora seemed to ignore his hostility. She was back to seeming highly nervous, rolling her shoulders slightly and her breathing quickening.

"When you leave, will you take me with you?"

Bellamy's tension vanished with shock. Whatever he had been expecting, it was not that. His arms dropped to his sides as he stared openly at Cora. Raven, too, was stunned. She made a strange noise and then shook her head, her ponytail hitting Bellamy's neck.

"What the hell, Cora?" she said, though it wasn't aggressive. If anything, she sounded sincerely perplexed.

Cora turned her body to face Raven's and took her hands. Even through his surprise, Bellamy noticed the intimacy of the gesture. "I want to go outside, Raven. I want everything you describes – the trees, the rain, the real air. I want the freedom. I want it so much it hurts."

Still holding Raven's hands, she looked up at Bellamy pleadingly. "Please, take me with you."

Bellamy held her gaze for a moment, not willing to let her see a reaction. Inside he was fuming. The only way that Cora would know he planned to leave was if Raven had told her. And judging by the way their hands were still clasped, he knew without a doubt that Raven had more than met the girl once. He'd always been good at reading people but he didn't need any skill to see that there was friendship between the two girls. Friendship that had formed God knew how considering Raven had only been at Mount Weather a few days; friendship that had resulted in Raven describing, in detail by the sound of it, their experiences on the ground and the world outside. The anxiety and apprehension at separating from Clarke balled into a sudden nut of anger.

"Raven?" He'd have expected he would shout, that was how he felt, but the word came out as a deadly hiss.

Raven, at least, looked stricken. She turned to Bellamy. "No, it's not like that!" It was as if she could read his mind, but perhaps with the anger clear in his expression, she didn't need to.

"She didn't betray you," Cora cut in hurriedly. Bellamy wished she would keep quiet. It had nothing to do with her. "I heard two boys talking about separating from the group. Raven didn't tell me anything about it."

There was almost a hint of resentment to her voice when she said it. Raven noticed it too, tilting her head towards Cora. Bellamy glared at the both of them, loathe to trust the word of his enemy. He didn't know why Raven was trusting this girl but he wasn't going to make the same mistake. She could be a spy sent in by the authority to catch them out amidst their plans. It would be what he would do in their situation. Now, because of her, they might never be able to escape. And what was worse, maybe the Mountain Men would exact punishment on all of them.

"What's going on?"

Clarke appeared at his elbow and he could have combusted with frustration. Of all the people to overhear their conversation, she was the worst option. She was already sympathetic to these Mountain Men, who knew what she'd say to this girl's proposal.

"There's no way you're coming with us," Bellamy said bluntly to Cora, ignoring Clarke's question. "If you try, I'll kill you myself."

Although Cora didn't react to his threat, he felt a twinge of guilt when Raven and Clarke gasped simultaneously.

"Bellamy!" Clarke was genuinely shocked at his aggression. Was she so surprised that he was capable of violence, after everything they had been through together? Still, the hurt in her tone made him feel uneasy. It was the same tone that he'd heard when she talked about Finn.

Cora was the only one not staring at Bellamy with a mixture of shock and anger. She shook her hair out over her shoulders with a confidence she hadn't showed at all in their previous discussion. Bellamy found it interesting how she could switch so easily from frightened mouse to bold beauty.

"You're the other leader?" she said to Clarke. Clarke blinked in surprise but nodded. "Then you should see it too."

"See what?" Raven said suspiciously.

"Something that will make you change your mind about your relationship with my people," Cora replied mysteriously.

Bellamy had turned away but that statement caused him to turn back. He didn't trust her as far as he could throw her, but he was intrigued. And he couldn't deny he liked the idea of Raven and Clarke changing their minds.

Clarke was frowning deeply. She opened her mouth to speak but Bellamy cut her off.

"Show us then," he said flatly, looking directly at Cora. She held his gaze and no matter how hard he studied her pale eyes, he could not find deceit in them.

Cora was firm that no one else could accompany them. He would have liked to include Jasper and Miller, but she was adamant. The more people in their group, the more dangerous it became, she said. She led them away from the dorms and Bellamy had to wonder what the cameras tracking their movements would make of it. That was assuming, of course, that they weren't being led into a trap. He hadn't dismissed the idea but he thought the Mountain people would have to be stupid to hurt them with the 100 still under their roof and the Ark occupants still technically unaligned. And for all their flaws, he didn't think they were stupid.

They walked down three flights of stairs. He wasn't sure if it was just his imagination but Bellamy thought it was getting colder the deeper they went into the mountain. Cora led them in silence along a maze of corridors and none of them felt like breaking the silence. He took the rear and could see the tension in the Raven and Clarke's shoulders as they walked. When Cora finally stopped, it wasn't in front of a door but in an empty, nondescript piece of corridor.

Bellamy looked at Cora demandingly.

"What are we looking at?" Clarke said, her hair flying out as she looked all around them. She seemed agitated and Bellamy wondered if she was beginning to doubt the Mountain Men.

"Whatever's behind that vent," Raven said and Bellamy looked to see she was staring at almost imperceptible silver slats in the wall at knee height. Cora appraised Raven with a thoughtful gaze. Clarke stared dubiously at the vent. It would be just big enough for a person to fit through. The girls would have no problem but it was going to be squeeze for Bellamy.

Cora stepped forward and dug her fingers between the vent and the wall, pulling the metal away with a screech that made Bellamy's teeth hurt. Cool and slightly staleair washed out at them and the darkness stretched away.

"It's only a short distance," Cora said, obviously reading Clarke and Bellamy's trepidation. "Not far, but this is the only way in. Well, for us, anyway."

"If this is the only way in, I'm suspecting we're not supposed to be there," Clarke remarked, still eying the vent.

"I think that's the point," Raven said. She flashed a knowing look at Cora and then ducked her head into the small space. She slithered forward with ease as if she was completely at home in a vent and soon her feet had disappeared from view.

"After you," Bellamy said to Cora. He watched her critically as she followed Raven. He thought it was unlikely but he didn't like the idea of Cora waiting till they were all in the vent and then sealing them in there.

When Cora's feet had disappeared from view, he motioned for Clarke to go first.

"Do you think this is a good idea?" Clarke said softly, not moving.

Bellamy rested a hand on her shoulder. "I thought you trusted them?"

She shot him a scathing look. "I never said that."

He smiled without joy as she dropped to her knees and disappeared head first into the vent.

They commando crawled in complete darkness for what felt like eternity, but was probably no more than ten minutes. Bellamy could see the faint glow of Clarke's white shoes ahead of him and hear her heavy breathing as she pulled herself forward.

At last the tunnel ahead of him began to lighten and he found he could make out Clarke's form. She stopped crawling and he tried to see past her.

"What's going on?" he hissed past her. He saw her head turn towards him slightly.

"Hang on," she replied. A second later she started moving forward again and then his heart almost leapt out of his chest when she slithered forward and seemed to vanish. He pulled himself the remainder of the way with his arm muscles straining and found himself on a lip. He was looking down into a small maintenance hole, nothing more than a tin box. The ventilation shaft continued on the other side of the box. The three faces of the girls were upturned to him. Cora raised a finger to her lips in a motion of silence. He pulled himself out of the vent and swung his legs down. He landed with a soft thud on a concrete floor beside Clarke. It was not a space designed for four people. It probably wasn't even designed for two, so he found himself pushed up between a solid wall and Clarke's side. She twisted sideways to give him more room but only succeeded in elbowing him in the stomach and brushing her hand against his thigh. He fixed his attention on the source of the light to distract himself from that – he was only human after all.

Raven and Cora were at the front of the box, their faces pressed up to the slatted opening. The light coming in was harsh and white. Now that he focused, Bellamy could hear several machines beeping and somewhere further away something that sounded like drilling. A female voice murmured something indistinguishable.

"What is it?" Clarke breathed in Raven's ear. She and Bellamy couldn't see what was in the room.

"Shhh," Cora breathe, her eye still glued to the slats. Bellamy and Clarke shared an anxious glance. What could possibly be in that room?

"Okay," Cora said suddenly, turning to face them. "They've left the room, but keep your voices down, I don't know how thin this thing is. Here, take a look."

She pulled herself up back into the shaft, leaving a space for Clarke to slide forward. Bellamy was pushed up behind her and Raven as Cora dropped back down again. Being taller than the two girls, Bellamy could lean over them and squint through the slats, but it resulted in his whole body being pressed up against Clarke's. The view sent his mind anywhere but on that fact, though, as his eyes adjusted to the light outside.

He heard Clarke breath in sharply.

From his position he could only see one side of the room. A long, metal bench sat against one wall, cluttered with vials and bottles and computers and machines he couldn't identify. The other wall was made entirely of glass and led into another, smaller room. A first he thought it was a hospital room but then he saw that the person in the bed was strapped in at their head, neck, shoulders and legs. Wires stretched from a machine – the source of the constant beeping – into little needles that disappeared into the person's body at various points.

"What are we looking at?" he murmured, though the knot in his stomach already knew.

"It's the evolutionary laboratories," Cora whispered behind him. "I found them when I was exploring these vents a few weeks ago."

"What do they do here?" Clarke said, though her tone sounded like Bellamy's stomach, as if it already knew but wanted to be told wrong.

"They experiment on captured field subjects," Cora said glumly. "You call them Grounders and Reapers. They perform experiments and testing to ascertain the evolutionary progress of those exposed to the outside. And they use them to perform experiments for new medicines and procedures."

As soon as she finished speaking, a god awful scream erupted from somewhere nearby. Bellamy swore and he felt Raven and Clarke jolt against him. The noise seemed to go on and on, echoing around the room outside. Other voices began shouting commands over the top and then, sickeningly, the scream died.

Bellamy felt Clarke trembling against him. The back of his neck was hot and prickling the way it always was when he was afraid.

"It's akin to torture," Cora finished quietly. Silence enveloped the enclosed space as they all recovered from the horrifying noise made by a human and the sights of the torture labs outside.


	19. Chapter 19

"I need to see more," Bellamy said, breaking the thick silence after a long time. They were all recovering from the scream that had set their teeth on edge, and the equally horrifying way it had so suddenly cut out. Bellamy's insides had become a slithering knot of snakes. He should feel triumphant in some way that his suspicions of the Mountain Men had been proven right, but all he felt was nausea.

"Have you been inside?" he asked, turning his head awkwardly to Cora. She bit her lip and then nodded hesitantly.

"...yes. The vent can open like the one we came in through. I climbed into the room for a few seconds. I wanted to see more too...but..."

"But what?" Bellamy demanded, his anger flaring. His whisper rose to a hiss.

"What's on the other side...you may not want to see it," she added in a mouse voice. "I was raised to fear and detest those that lived on the outside. They've never been considered people by the Society. I was raised with that belief but even I was disgusted by what they were doing."

"What do you mean they've never been considered people?" Clarke said in a stunned-sounding whisper. She was still staring intently into the room outside.

Cora shrugged sheepishly. "Just that. They're genetically imperfect, damaged. We've never considered them any more whole human than the mutated deer and wolves outside. They're considered uncivilised and barbaric, a devolution of humankind. They're not human enough to be responsible for the things they do and so they're not human enough to have rights."

"So you kill them?" Raven said, her eyes large in the half-darkness.

"Eventually," Cora said, her voice heavy. "From what I could gather from spying on the labs, it can take a long time before they're considered without further scientific purpose."

Clarke let out a raw sob and Bellamy felt again the urge to comfort her. He was already in such close quarters with her that he didn't think it would matter if he did; he laid a reassuring hand gently on the base of her neck, the easiest part of her he could reach.

"This is what you thought would change our mind?" Raven said, staring straight at Cora.

Cora nodded. "I didn't think you'd believe me unless I showed you. I know your people think differently of the people on the outside."

"We're hardly friends," Bellamy said, having returned his gaze to the slats in the vent. He mentally added Octavia and Lincoln as an exception. "We killed our fair share of Grounders."

"In war," Raven said vehemently. "That was us or them. This, this is different. It's cold-blooded and cruel. This is genocide."

No one contradicted her.

"What do we do now?" Clarke asked after another long, depressed silence.

"I'm going out there," Bellamy said. "There doesn't seem to be anyone there now. The voices stopped some time ago. What time is it, Cora?"

"Zero eight hundred," she replied. "They'll be in the mess having morning meal."

"No time like the present," Bellamy murmured and began to move his fingers along the inside of the vent looking for an opening. Suddenly Clarke's hand pressed flat on top of his. He halted, feeling as though a bolt of electricity had shot from her touch.

"I'm coming with you," she said firmly. "I need to see what they're doing. I need to know."

He stared at her, once again filled with admiration. She could have taken Cora's word for it. She could have taken Bellamy's word for it. She was clearly terrified but she was dauntless and determined to seek the truth.

"We'll stay here," Cora said, speaking for Raven. Bellamy glanced at Raven, expecting her to object to being spoken for but she seemed in a state of semi-shock and nodded meekly.

"If you're going, go now," Cora said. "You'll have no more than half an hour."

Bellamy replaced the vent covering behind them and turned to Clarke. She was quivering with anticipation and he felt similar.

"What are we looking for?" he said, his voice hushed even thought that was hardly going to save them if someone walked into the laboratory. Spotting a line of hooks on the wall nearby, he plucked two almost-white lab coats from them and tossed one to Clarke.

"It might not help," he said as he shrugged into his own. "But it can't hurt."

"I guess we're looking for equipment or reports that tell us what they're doing here. It's all well for Cora to say they're akin to torture, but I need to understand what they're doing."

Bellamy pressed his lips together. "You heard that scream before, right?"

She shot him an acidic look but said nothing.

"Come on," she motioned towards the benches filled with computers, "let's start over here. We can't waste time."

Bellamy followed her to the line of monitors but as soon as she touched a key the screen lit up asking for a pin number. Clarke frowned but moved on quickly to the papers that were spread on the bench beside. Even from a distance Bellamy could tell he would be no help interpreting them. He walked passed Clarke, peering through the windows into the rooms beyond. There was another lab, this one holding a rack of metal cages with what looked like mice.

At the far end of the room he found glass door. He pressed a green button beside and it slid open to a small entranceway. It had four walls, each only big enough for the door they held. The other three doors were metal without windows to reveal inside. He pressed the green button beside one and stepped into the room.

This room was more familiar to him than the labs. It looked not much different to the hospital wing on the Ark. A metal framed bed sat against one wall but there was nobody asleep on it and the sheet was unwrinkled and austere. There were medical machines and monitors crowded around the head of the bed. A tangle of tubes and wires were bundled along the wall, ready to be stuck into and onto the person in the bed. He retreated, unnerved by the strong smell of bleach in the room.

Bellamy slid open the second door to find another hospital-like room, a woman seemingly asleep on the metal cot. This one didn't have tubes and wires coursing from bed to machines. In fact, apart from a regular looking BP and heart rate monitor, she could almost have been a hospital patient on the Ark. Except for the obvious metal cuffs that kept her locked to the metal frame of the bed.

And Bellamy only had to take a few steps closer to identify her as a Grounder – even in one of their spotless white hospital gowns, the tattoos on her skin and dreadlocks in her hair identified her as one of his old enemies.

"Oh my god!" Clarke gasped. He hadn't even heard her enter the room behind him or approach, so he jumped when she spoke from his elbow. He turned to her in alarm to see she was staring at the woman in the bed. "Anya!" she said with dismay.

"The Grounder leader?" Bellamy said, looking back at the woman. She didn't look as terrifying as Clarke had described her. Then again, she wasn't exactly in her element. In fact, the more he studied her, the more he decided she looked acutely ill, skin sallow and sheen.

"She came into the Dropship seconds before we locked the door," Clarke said quietly. "She was the only survivor from...our plan."

Bellamy recalled the blackened skeletons that had littered the ground around the Dropship when he had first awoken. He couldn't say he thought Anya's survival was any blessing, considering the needle taped into her arm and the yellow-tinged circles under her eyes.

"They must have taken her when they captured us. I did ask, when we first arrived here, but they said they knew nothing of a living Grounder with us." Clarke looked up at him with guilt heavy in her eyes. "To be honest, I thought they might have killed her and left her there. And I didn't do anything about it."

"Perhaps it would have been better if they had killed her there and left her body to rot with those of her people's," Bellamy said darkly. He didn't feel much sympathy for the person who had embodied the fight for his life and that of everyone he cared about, but he wasn't cold-blooded nor a monster and the sight of someone so clearly tortured and suffering still made his stomach twinge.

"It would have," said a croaky voice and both Bellamy and Clarke flicked their gaze back to the bed. The occupant was looking at them through barely cracked eyes. He could easily have looked at her and not realised she was conscious.

"Anya?" Clarke said and Bellamy could hear the torment in her voice. He rested a hand on her arm, aware of the moral pain this place would cause to Clarke. She didn't see the world as black and white as Bellamy did he knew she suffered because of it.

"What have they done to you?" Clarke said, stepping closer to the bed. Bellamy's fingers tensed on her arm, tempted to pull her away.

Anya didn't answer, Bellamy wasn't sure she even could, but her eyes flickered sideways, to a monitor on a small table beside the bed. Clarke followed her indication, frowning. She moved around the bed and up to the screen, her frown deepening.

"Do you think that's a good idea?" Bellamy asked gruffly, glancing over his shoulder at the lab outside. He suddenly remembered the dangerous predicament they were in and that he had completely lost track of time in the shock of their discovery.

Clarke ignored him, tapping rapidly on the screen with her forefinger.

"It's immunology," she murmured thoughtfully, her eyes flashing back and forth as she read. "They're experimenting for vaccines." She inhaled sharply and Bellamy saw her eyes freeze.

"What is it?" she demanded, his worry of time forgotten by the frozen expression on Clarke's face. He strode around the bed in three strides and was at Clarke's side in a moment. He flicked his eyes over the screen but the scientific words and complex diagrams meant nothing to him.

"They've injected her with Marburg Virus," she murmured. Bellamy scanned his brain for the illness but came up blank. Either it was something he had ignored from his classes or something obscure and strange that only Clarke would enjoy learning.

"It causes a hemorrhagic fever," she explained, as if reading the blankness in his mind. "Similar to the one the Grounders sent to us. But it's severe, a higher death rate. Almost certain death."

She bit her lip and looked passed the monitor to the bed again.

"They're murdering her," she murmured.

Bellamy thought he caught the ghost of a bitter smile twist Anya's lips.

"What will it do to her?" Bellamy asked.

Clarke considered for a moment, chewing her lip nervously. He could almost see the information ticking over in her brain, calculating from the hue of Anya's skin and the frailty of the veins apparent in her wrists how far along the fever was.

"Her temperature's at 106°," she assessed from the screen, "and she's severely dehydrated. She's not haemorrhaging yet though, but that could mean anything. Incubation can be for up to three weeks so she could have been infected ages ago. Decades before the Apocalypse this disease had an 80% mortality rate but that rose around the times of the bombs because the virus mutated and became stronger. Considering they've done nothing to ease her symptoms and there is no registry of medication given, not even pain relief, there's no way she can survive. As she deteriorates her fever will become worse until she's delirious. She'll begin to haemorrhage; that will become severe until she'll either die of blood loss or shock within 10 days of symptom onset."

Clarke sounded like a talking textbook but Bellamy didn't say anything. He was too nauseas from the idea of someone dying helplessly from the type of illness he'd experienced. He remembered how terrified he had been when he first saw blood and he remembered the way weakness had crept through his limbs and rendered him immobile.

"Our people died fighting a disease like this," he said eventually, his teeth gritted. He still remembered the face of every person they had lost to the hemorrhagic fever. "Despite everything you did to save them, they died in agony and terror. And here, these people have medicine and equipment and they deliberately let people suffer and die."

"They couldn't save her if she was infected naturally," Clarke said but her voice quivered. "And they are trying to find a way to cure it."

"Even if they found a cure through this torture, do you honestly think they'd use it for anyone other than themselves?" he said heatedly. He already loathed the Society but this was a nail in the coffin. He wanted to be away from this laboratory that smelt of bleach and death, and away from the cold, concrete and metal corridors that never saw sunlight.

The mournful eyes that Clarke turned to him said that she knew the answers. He could see her confidence in crashing in front of him. Whether she had honestly trusted these people or just desperately wanted to be able to trust them, her faith was being shredded. Everything in this laboratory was what Clarke feared and despised the most.

"We have to leave," she said simply. Bellamy tried to not show the leap of his heart. Relief flooded cool through his veins.

"I can't bear to leave this horror as it is," she said in a trembling voice, "but they're too strong. We have to run, get our people away from them."

"What about the Ark?"

Clarke groaned as if she'd just realised the complexity of the situation. Bellamy, despite his delight of a moment ago, felt tense and grim. He knew as well as Clarke did that the Ark made very different decisions to the 100. He was still surprised that they'd placed the decision in the hands of the 100 and he didn't expect them to do it again.

"We can warn them," he said as he formulated the thoughts, "but they have to make their own decisions."

Clarke looked as though the idea tormented her.

Before she could speak, there was a light bang in the lab outside and both Bellamy and Clarke jumped. Adrenalin spiked in Bellamy's chest. Leaping to the door, he poked his head around the doorframe, hid heart thundering at the idea of coming face to face with one of their Frankenstein doctors.

The lab was empty. His entire body uncoiled with relief. Running his eyes over the room, he spotted a flutter of movement near the ground. A hand was motioning him frantically from the slightly open vent in the wall.

"Hurry up!" Raven hissed across the room. He motioned to show he heard and understood and then held up five fingers.

He could imagine Raven grumbling that if he got caught it would be his own fault. He slipped back into the room where Clark had moved to the side of Anya's bed. She was looking down at he Grounder woman with the large, anxious eyes Clarke pitied people with.

"Clarke we have to go," he said.

She nodded absently but didn't move. "We can't just leave them like this," she murmured and lifted her head slightly. He ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. He didn't like the idea of walking away from this place powerlessly any more than she did, but it was impossible.

"There could be hundreds of people down here, Clarke," he said. "And what would you do? Smuggle them out through the vent? We have to save ourselves so we can save our people."

She winced. She hated it when he talked so coldly but that was the reason they had survived. He knew now that they needed her compassion but they also needed his callousness. And this was one situation where they had to make sacrifices.

"Not...me..."

Clarke leaned closer, trying to hear the faint words that had passed Anya's cracked lips.

"Don't get too close, Clarke," Bellamy said with sudden concern, taking a step towards her as if to pull her away. "You might catch it."

Clarke ignored him and urged Anya to repeat herself.

With effort the Grounder forced each word. "Not...save...Kill...me."

Clarke pulled back. "No," she said shortly, shaking her head. Her eyes were bright. "I can't do that again."

Bellamy was thrown back into the woods, kneeling beside Atom as Clarke ended his pain by sliding a blade into his neck. He reached out and placed a hand on her elbow.

"We need to go, Clarke," he said quietly.

A choking, rasping noise burst from Anya. "Please!"

Clarke, eyes glistening, looked desperately at Bellamy. "We can't help her escape," she said, her voice thick. "But we can end it."

Bellamy stared hard at her. Clarke wanted to risk their lives by helping a Grounder; a mercy kill. Only Clarke could make killing someone seem the right thing to do. Again.

"I'll do it," he said without thinking. He wanted to draw out the agonised look in her eyes. He knew how tormented she had been by Atom's death, even if it had been the kindest thing to do.

"I'll do it," he repeated with growing confidence as the relief washed across Clarke's expression. She may not want to admit it but she was terrified of killing again.

He moved around the other side of the bed, feeling stiff.

"Clarke, go back to the vent," he said, his eyes focused on the frail figure of the woman in the bed. He didn't need Clarke's medical knowledge to know that her days were numbered. She reeked of death.

Clarke hesitated only a second. She looked once more at Anya and then hurried from the room. He heard her footsteps running across the lab tiles and the scratching of her fingers at the vent.

"You're sure?" he said quietly. Anya gave the tiniest movement of her head.

Flexing his fingers, he slid the thin, hard pillow out from under her head. Her head thudded onto the hard mattress in its absence. Without giving himself time to process or feel, he pressed the pillow down over her face and forced all his weight onto it.

For several seconds nothing happened. His arms were trembling with the force he pressed with and he almost let go of the pillow when Anya's body began to jerk suddenly. With strength he wouldn't have thought she'd have, she pulled at the cuffs locking her to the bed, and beneath his arms her body convulsed. He closed his eyes and counted his breaths until he was sure the movement had stopped. Timidly he cracked open an eye. Her arms had flopped back to the bed and she no longer fought. Resisting the urge to pull away immediately, he stayed where he was for as long as he could.

He'd seen death over and over on the ground. He'd come to expect it to be ghastly and gruesome. He was surprised when he removed the pillow and found that Anya looked as though she were sleeping. He'd thought that there would be choking on tongues and bursting blood vessels, but she looked almost peaceful.

His hands were steadier as he lifted her head and slid the pillow back into place.

He stood for a moment, feeling as though he should say something. In the end he turned and walked from the room, slamming the green button to shut the door behind him. He strode across the lab to where he could see Clarke's face gleaming pale in the vent. Her eyes were ridiculously large.

"Coat!" she hissed as he ducked to enter the vent.

"What?" he replied dumbly, staring at her.

"Take off your coat!" She motioned at the lab coat he still wore.

With fumbling fingers he slid it from his shoulders and took several tries to get it on the hook. As he slithered head first into the vent, he felt his stomach lurch. He closed his throat and forced himself to calm the sudden guilt that had risen. It was not the first time he had killed someone and he had a sinking suspicion it would not be the last, but there was something awful about this one.

Behind him Cora pulled the vent back into place.

"What did you find?" Raven murmured apprehensively, looking between Clarke and Bellamy as he wriggled himself into a kneeling position and then to his feet. He leaned against the cold, metal wall of the space.

"We've got to get out of here," Clarke said before Bellamy could answer. Her jaw was set and in her eyes Bellamy was glad to see a familiar fiery determination.


	20. Chapter 20

As soon as the group found Abby among the throng of murmuring teenagers, Clarke locked onto her target.

"We need to talk," she said sharply. Bellamy could feel the tension in her body from where he stood at her side. Abby Griffin had glanced up at their approach and something about her daughter's tone or expression had made her freeze. Bellamy felt again the pang of homesickness at the sight of her concern, not homesickness for their blank cabin on the Ark but for the people who had lived within it.

Abby nodded, tight-lipped, and guided them out of the room and into the deserted corridor.

She pressed her back against the wall as if she wanted to brace herself for what her daughter could say and looked between the two of them. Raven and Cora had broken off in the main room, heads bowed as they talked quietly. Bellamy hadn't missed it, but he had pushed it to the back of his mind for now.

"This isn't good news," Abby stated calmly.

"No," Clarke agreed. She took a deep breath. "You can't align with these people," she said as if she wanted to press the words out before she lost her courage. "They're murderers. We saw laboratories where they're doing experiments on people, on Grounders. They're injecting them with viruses and practicing surgeries on them as if they're not even human. They've got no compassion, no mercy. They might do the same to our people if we stay."

Abby held her daughter's gaze for a long moment and Bellamy recognised the deep thoughtfulness with which the Griffin women approached problems.

"You've seen this with your own eyes?" she asked at last and her voice was still even and low as if Clarke had informed her of the weather.

Clarke nodded tensely.

Abby's eyes shot to Bellamy. "They're all leaving with you now, aren't they?"

It was his turn to nod. Clarke hadn't need to tell him that she agreed with him now, it was obvious from the horror she'd felt in the laboratory. And Clarke had been the reason most of their people were staying. As soon as Clarke announced that they should all leave with Bellamy, the flock would follow.

"We're returning with you to the Ark," he said, "but then we'll leave for the coast in the east. We won't live under these people. Not after everything we've worked for here on the ground."

Abby studied him thoughtfully. Once again Bellamy was surprised that his words were treated with such respect by the adults of the Ark.

"I need to talk with Kane and the others," she said. "You must continue with your plan. Leave as soon as we return to the Ark. We will provide you with what medicine and food we can spare. We will discuss our own course of action."

"The longer you stay...Mom," Clarke said quietly, almost pleadingly. Bellamy suddenly felt as though he was invading on a private moment. He stepped backwards. He had delivered his message and he had now been told directly by an Ark representative that he had made the right decision for his people. His duty was done.

As he turned and walked away he heard Abby try and reassure Clarke.

"We make decisions together, now, Clarke. We have learned from our mistakes..."

In the freezing darkness just before dawn, dozens of shadowed shapes flittered among the trees around the Ark and along the bank of the river. Bellamy had left first with Miller, Jasper and Monty. They arrived on the edge of a small cliff face over where the river entered the enormous lake in a delta, just as the sky began to bleed the palest pink. All four boys had large, makeshift packs strapped onto their backs. In the middle of the night when the 100 had been saying their goodbyes and preparing their departure, Abby had been making sure that they had as much medicine, food and clothing as Mecha Station could spare.

Finding a clump of scrub, Bellamy and the other boys settled down to wait the gradual arrival of the rest of their people. Bellamy sat on his pack, watched the shoreline closely, eagle eyed for movement, and thought back to their short time reunited with the Ark.

He hadn't had anyone to greet him with a teary cry and a deep embrace. He wasn't the only one, by far, but it had still hurt quite a lot to watch the love. Perhaps that was why he'd spent most of the few hours they were at Mecha sitting with Abby, talking about medicine, the land, the Grounders, the Society and Clarke.

As far as he could tell, Clarke had barely said two words to her mother since they'd been reunited. It was obvious that it was killing Abby but she didn't want to push it. He tried to tell her how much he knew Clarke loved her mother and how much it was clear she was like her.

He'd had a talk with Kane as well, which had been less emotional than his one with Abby. He'd done his best to convince the old councillor to escape with the hundred, but his decision was the same as what Abby had said in Mount Weather. In a way Bellamy knew it was right but it was still frustrating to him that they were just staying behind, aligning themselves with those monsters.

Kane wouldn't give up on the rest of the Ark though. He said they had to remain with shelter and supplies, at least temporarily, while they searched for the other stations. He was sure that at least one other had survived. If Bellamy had been in Kane's position he may well have done the same thing, but he wasn't. He had his small group of wild, rebellious and incredibly courageous teenagers and they were going to protect each other.

Seven of the hundred were staying behind. Most of them were the young ones, barely teenagers, who couldn't tear themselves away from their families again. One person who had no reason to stay, as far as Bellamy could see, and every reason to leave, was Finn. Yet he had stood near the boundary fence and watched in silence as Bellamy and his group disappeared into the trees.

Bellamy had no tolerance for Finn's feelings, not when he'd witnessed the hurt and grief flash across Clarke's face at the way Finn treated her now. He barely talked to her, barely even looked at her. On their journey back to Mecha Station Bellamy had witnessed Clarke's attempt to talk to him again. Finn had boiled over like a volcano, completely unrecognisable. It made him wonder if the anger and bitterness that was teeming from this new Finn had always been somewhere beneath the surface of the previously passive boy, or if it was something that had germinated and grown in the darkness of the Reaper's cave.

Bellamy had decided not to even try to understand him anymore. He knew that both Clarke and Raven would be in pain from Finn's decision to remain, but the whole thing was so complex now that Bellamy had decided just to deal with the fallout. He'd be there for Raven if she missed Finn and he'd be there for Clarke if she hated him or loved him or both, even if she didn't want him to be.

As the crowd at the mouth of the river grew, Raven arrived with Harper, Sampson and Cora. Bellamy unfolded himself from the ground as he recognised her agile figure approaching, and jogged to meet her. He was stiff from sitting so long in the cool, pre-dawn air and his anxiety was grateful for a release in the form of movement.

"Everything alright?" he asked simply when he stood in front of her. She dropped her pack with a sigh, rolling her shoulders.

"Fine," she muttered, eyes fixed on the ground.

"Finn chose to stay behind," he stated, certain that that was the source of her solemnity. His eyes flickered passed Raven to where Cora was hanging a few feet back, pretending not to overhear and gazing out of the lake in awe. He'd forgotten that she had begged to come along because she'd never experienced the outside in its raw state. He didn't have to imagine what she was feeling at that moment; he remembered all too well from their first moments on the ground.

Raven shot him a venomous look but he knew she wasn't really angry at him.

"Don't pretend that you're not happy he's staying," she said. "You never liked him and with him out of the picture you can finally make a proper move on Clarke."

Bellamy jolted at her brashness. He glanced around them swiftly but everyone else was talking in nervous whispers amongst themselves. He opened his mouth to object but Raven snapped first.

"Oh, come on. Everyone knows. Clarke is going to be pissed that Finn stayed but if she's anything like me, there's a fairly large, incredibly guilty part of her that is glad."

It was so like Raven to disguise her own hurt amid someone else's and it took Bellamy a moment to process what she'd said. He fixed Raven with an intense look.

"You don't need to feel guilty," he said sincerely. "People change. Finn has made his choices, and those choices include rejecting everyone. Even when something awful has happened, people still have the ability to help themselves by reaching out."

He even surprised himself at the sageness of his words. He cleared his throat gruffly and Raven scuffed the dirt with her toe.

"Thanks," she muttered, flashing him a quick smile.

"Raven?" Cora's voice was surprisingly loud and clear in the still air compared to the whispers of everyone else. She was standing at the edge of the lake, dipping her fingers into the water, watching someone.

Raven punched Bellamy gently on the shoulder and strode over to Cora side. She dropped down beside her but then turned back to Bellamy.

"Oh, Bellamy, for everyone's sake, just tell Clarke," she called out. Bellamy's insides contracted sharply.

"Tell me what?"

If he'd been in agony at Raven's obviousness before, hearing Clarke's voice made him want to throw up. He turned to her feeling stiff and mechanical. She had just arrived with the last three people and had come over the last rise at a jog and now stood a few feet from him, breathing hard with her hands on her hips. Someone had changed her hair; he wondered if it was Abby. It had been washed and re-braided and looked as neat as the day they arrived on earth.

"Tell me what?" she repeated, slightly edgy. She narrowed her eyes on Bellamy.

"Nothing," he muttered and turned away. He heard a grumble from the edge of the lake where Raven and Cora were supposed to be inspecting nature.

He marched as fast as he could with dignity back to his pack and swung it up onto his shoulders.

"We're leaving in five," he called to the huddles around him. The sun was beginning to peek over the edge of the mountains and the light had been turning from grey to orange since Raven arrived.

Adjusting the weight on his back, he skirted around the rusting groups of people as he made his way to the front. He kept going even when he could no longer hear their mutterings and stopped only when the ground began to tilt upwards. He looked at the path they were going to take. The foothills of the mountain range on the northern shore of the lake lay between them and the ocean in the east. It would be a difficult but manageable climb.

The tips of the snow-capped mountains were turning brilliant shades of orange and pink as the sun danced off the ice. The lower ridges and hills were rustling with a morning breeze. Many of the trees were beginning to lose their myriad of autumn colours and leaves rained down in a steady shower, leaving the branches reaching towards the sky like skeleton arms. It was a landscape of beauty and danger.

"Tell me what?"

He started at the soft voice at his elbow. He had been lost in his study and hadn't even heard Clarke join him. She stood almost touching his shoulder, her eyes fixed on his intently.

"Raven's voice is too loud," he said grumpily. He knew that once Clarke had hold of something, she wasn't going to let it go. A part of him wanted to explain to her how he had gone from loathing her every cell to mild admiration to something that was an undercurrent in his whole being. He wanted to tell her how he couldn't make a decision or see something new or have an idea without wondering what she'd think of it too. He wanted to tell her that when he lay down to sleep at night and he lost that strict control on his thoughts in that moment before sleep, he'd see her and imagine things that made his skin flush hot.

"Well, it was your voice I heard first actually," Clarke said calmly. "I heard an entire discussion about Finn and I heard Raven make some interesting comments regarding me..."

He didn't need to be falling asleep this time; his entire body burned with humiliation. Clarke had heard the entire conversation. She had heard Raven insisting that he had romantic feelings for her and she had heard him very much not denying it.

He wanted to bury himself under the leaves that coated the ground and just lay there until she'd given up and moved along. Perhaps he could lie his way out of it. If she was looking for an convenient reason to dismiss the notion that he had feelings for her, then it could be easy.

Except she rested a hand on his elbow, gently turning him towards her. His surprise must have shown in his whole body because she withdrew her hand and looked a little taken aback.

"Raven said it, and Monty has said it, and my Mom felt the need to say it as well, but I'd really prefer to hear you actually say it..."

His breath caught in his throat. No word was going to make its way around the lump that was stopping his from breathing. He made a strange garbling noise.

"How about I start," she suggested and it was clear from the way she was quivering that it was as much an effort for her as it was for him.

"Bellamy," she began carefully and he thought he might pass out hearing his name pass through her lips in that tone, "I've come to care for you more than I ever thought possible..."

She trailed off, frowning as if she couldn't make the words form the thoughts she wanted. He knew that feeling. It didn't help his coherence that his stomach was doing flips and his skin was prickling all over. Behind them, dozens of pairs of feet made crunching sounds over the gravel and leaves as their people rose to their feet and began to move towards their leaders who stood on the brink of their journey. Bellamy was overwhelmed with a sense that everything was finely balanced and he was standing between an old, broken time and one that shimmered with possibility. Everything was going to change. He took a deep breath.

"We're going to start a new life," he said carefully, as if each word were made of the finest porcelain, "and Clarke...I want to start that new life with you."


End file.
